


On the Path to Elysium

by MagicalDragon



Series: Elysium [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Eventual Enjolras/Grantaire, Historical References, Illustrations, M/M, POV Grantaire, Period-Typical Homophobia, Queer History, Queer Themes, for the most part anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2020-07-23 09:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 49,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20006305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalDragon/pseuds/MagicalDragon
Summary: “May I sit with you?” Grantaire asked on that night, interrupting whatever conversation the two men had been having.The lighter of the two threw out his arms in a welcoming gesture, so Grantaire sat down.“I am Jeannine around these parts,” he said with an easy smile. “This is my companion, L'abbesse de Meaux.”This dark abbess laughed loudly.“Also known as Bossuet. Not properly, of course, but we aren’t the proper sort, are we?” He said with a toothy grin. Grantaire met it in kind.“I suppose we are not."or "Being MLM in the 1820s-30s: The Fic"





	1. 1804-1824

In his hometown, it was said that one Adrien Grantaire had almost been born outside of wedlock. Had it not been for his father's feelings of honour, young Adrien and his mother would have been condemned to a life of shame — if the boy had indeed been allowed to stay with his mother at all. But the older Monsieur Grantaire had acted with honour, it was said, and married the young lady he had made with child. While it was not thought he did, the younger Grantaire knew of this story, for he had a talent for picking up gossip, particularly of the kind none wanted him to hear. 

He also knew his mother had been a decent match. His father had not married below his station by being a man of honour. But a year later, his income would have allowed him a much better match. Perhaps this was why he hated his oldest son so. Had the younger Grantaire been clever where it counted, had he been ambitious and hard-working, Grantaire could perhaps have been forgiven for ruining his father’s social climb. But Grantaire was none of those things and so he was hated. 

Still, had he not been hated at home, Grantaire might never have gone to Paris. More than once, Grantaire wondered, with no shortage of bitterness, if he ought to thank his father for making his home a place he could not bear to be. 

The first time Grantaire left the fields of Southern France behind for Paris, he was to study at the _École des Beaux-Arts_. His father hated the idea, but Grantaire’s mother and uncle had insisted upon it on his behalf, and his father decided to pin his hopes of a real heir on Grantaire’s much younger brother. No thought was ever spared for his sister. One brother was hated, the other was loved — the sister was ignored. Such was the way of things in the Grantaire home, and Grantaire was not sad to leave it behind for the excitement of a grand capital and many of its great painters. 

So it was that in fall of 1822, Grantaire arrived in Paris, as many other young hopefuls did. One of his parents’ servants had traveled with him and helped him move into the chambers his parents had arranged for him to rent. The chambers were much smaller than what he had been used to, but they were clean and close to the _École des Beaux-Arts_ , and Grantaire had no complaints. He told the servant as much, and he, who had been serving their family for most of Grantaire’s life, smiled and expressed his sincere hopes for Grantaire’s studies, before he begged his leave so he could begin the journey back home the same day. 

Back home… Yes, it would still be so for Grantaire, a place he thought back to as his home. Perhaps in time Paris would adopt him, but thus far, he was naught but a founding to her. 

Lesson startups were still a few days off, and so, once he had his things in order to a satisfactory degree, Grantaire spend his time getting to know the area that would be his home for the years to come. He visited local cafés and bars, walked down to the Seine to take in the chaos that reigned by its shores, and found himself in a gambling place or two. Never had he felt so free; free from burden and free to do as he wished. 

Once lessons started, that changed. 

Oh, Grantaire could still go where he wished and do as he wanted without parental comment or interference, but his teachers were as strict as the ones he had grown up with. When one teacher roughly confiscated his sketch to berate him loudly for his poor grasp of perspective, Grantaire could not help but be brought back to the hundred or so times he had been hit over the head for not grasping the mathematics he should by all rights have understood.

“Look at this!” the teacher said loudly as he showed the other gathered students Grantaire half finished rendition of Claude Dejoux’s _Saint Sebastian_. “Without proper construction, your piece is worth nothing! You should never start shading before you have captured the correct perspective!”

A few of the other students snickered, but most only seemed relieved to have avoided Grantaire’s fate. 

“Start over,” the teacher added in an aside to Grantaire, before walking over to criticise another student. 

“Bastard,” Grantaire muttered to himself.

Or so he had thought — the student nearest to him, a dark haired youth of an impressive built, snickered and shot Grantaire a sympathetic look. 

“I’m reasonably certain he’s like that with everyone,” he told Grantaire in a low voice. “Take courage, my friend.”

Grantaire looked the other man up and down for a moment to determine whether he was being ridiculed, but the other youth seemed sincere enough, and so Grantaire sent him a crooked smile. 

“One should think he would appreciate poor construction,” he said. “With a build such as his own.”

The other man had to stifle a laugh at that; their teacher was very tall, but walked in an odd, hunched over way, that reminded Grantaire rather of an exotic bird. 

“Jean-Jacques Sabatier,” Grantaire’s fellow student said by way of introduction. 

“Adrien Grantaire. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Monsieur Sabatier, but now I fear I must return to my board and my chalks, lest I catch our esteemed master’s attention once more.”

Sabatier just nodded, but again he seemed amused by Grantaire. An odd prospect... people were not usually amused by Grantaire’s antics — not in a kind way, at least. If Grantaire had ever had a friend, it had been long ago. As little, he had played with hallboys and the children of various servants, but with age, such things had been left behind. Besides, he had always been the young master, the one everyone of them must listen to and obey. There had been few youths around of an appropriate status in his hometown and even fewer of an appropriate age or gender. He had tolerated — or, perhaps more accurately, been tolerated by — two other young men, but they had had little enough in common besides those qualities necessary to allow their friendship and they had never confided in one another. So no, Grantaire had never had a true friendship. Not a friendship of equals. 

Not before Sabatier. 

Slowly, life in Paris and studies at the _École des Beaux-Arts_ transformed into ordinary life. Grantaire drew religiously, desperate to be allowed to draw from live models instead of relegated to drawing from sculptures, as one would be until one’s teachers were satisfied. His mind and papers filled over with depictions of every classical hero, every biblical figure, every Classical god and every Roman emperor. Still, a friendship managed to blossom during this time. Sabatier and Grantaire would often find quiet camaraderie as they drew during the day, both preoccupied with the goal of being allowed live drawing, and boisterous friendship during the night, as they made their way through every decent — and indecent — wine-shop in Paris. No longer were they foreign to Paris, they came to know her as intimately as they came to know each other.

On the day they were finally declared ready for live model drawing, more than a year into their studies, Grantaire exclaimed to his friend: 

“Can you believe it? After more than a year of toil, of sweat and tears and broken chalks and coals, we are at our goal. We have sailed for a decade, and finally we are allowed to glimpse Ithaca! Finally, Athena’s blessing has won out over Poseidon’s rage! Still, we are not at peace yet. We must prove ourselves worthy once more, before we may be allowed paint… the colours of the world are denied us still. Oh, how long and cruel or journey is!”

Grantaire ceased speaking then — he had managed to talk himself down from the euphoria he had been feeling. 

“Don’t think of that just yet, Grantaire,” Sabatier said. “Let us celebrate our right to models before we despair of our denial of colours.”

“You’re right, of course,” Grantaire said with a smile. “You must excuse my melancholy. You must know I am prone to such weakness.”

Sabatier looked at him for a bit, a sad smile on his lips.

“Then we must rile you from it! We must engage in such revelry that any dark thought can find no hold. Let us go. We shall drink and cheer and gamble and leave with a grisette each at the end of it all.”

At that, Grantaire laughed loudly. 

“Yes, yes, let us do so. Let us make Dionysus proud this night!”

With that decided, the two friends went off to a wine-shop near Sabatier’s quarters that they frequented often enough that many of the servers knew them by name. Indeed, the moment they walked in, one of the girls grabbed a bottle of their usual wine. 

“Many thanks, Jeanette,” Sabatier said when she brought it to him. “You take such good care of us.”

“Monsieur, it is my impression that someone ought to,” she teased. 

“I'm wounded, mademoiselle, wounded,” Grantaire exclaimed. “You should know, you stand before two future premiere artists of France! We stand before the task of drawing from life, from the natural human form, and soon we shall paint France in its natural form, and our pieces will be seen far and wide, and, of course, our fortunes will follow, and yet we will remain loyal. We will keep coming here, to you, Jeanette, and let you bring us our wine, and we will tip you ostentatiously and when people mention our names you may say: I know him!”

“That may be so,” said Jeanette, who had grown used to Grantaire’s particular brand of rambling at this point, “but it seems to me that the artist need more taking care of than the average man, regardless of success.”

“I believe it may be so,” Sabatier agreed easily. 

Once Jeanette managed to escape them, their night progressed as many of their nights did. They were merry together and their merriment attracted others to them, as they discussed the most frivolous things. And as Sabatier had said, they did drink and cheer and gamble that night, but only Sabatier left with a grisette at the end of it. Grantaire might say that none had been receptive to his advances - but more honestly, he might have said that his affections were currently too preoccupied elsewhere. 

Though Grantaire was overjoyed to draw from live models, that joy only managed to sustain him for a few months. Soon enough, the strict teachings of the _École des Beaux-Arts_ began to feel suffocating again. Try as he might, he could not help but feel stifled. The croquis sessions where otherwise, but they were not enough to keep the dark thoughts that started slowly consuming him at bay. 

“My friend, I have been thinking,” Grantaire said to Sabatier one day while they were drawing at the Louvre. 

“A dangerous prospect,” Sabatier commented. 

“Ah, be silent!” Grantaire dismissed good humouredly. “Have you heard of Paul Delaroche?”

Sabatier dropped his eyes from Caesar and turned them to Grantaire. 

“Oh course,” he said. 

Paul Delaroche had been a student at the _École des Beaux-Arts_ before Grantaire and Sabatier entered it — and had left before, too, for the atelier of Antoine-Jean Gros. His debut to the Paris Salon had come the same year Grantaire and Sabatier had entered the _École des Beaux-Arts._

“Monsieur Delaroche did not finish his academic training and I am beginning to prescribe a great deal of wisdom to that decision.”

Sabatier did not raise his eyes to Caesar again. 

“You wish to leave,” he simply said. 

“I sink deeper and deeper into melancholy here,” he admitted. “Perhaps in an actual atelier, I might be allowed more than the constant copying and repetition of what came before us. Perhaps it will not all feel so bland and meaningless. Perhaps the muses, who have abandoned me, will grace me once again with their favour. I do not know. What I know is that all I do now is pale, pathetic imitations of the past, that no man should ever wish to look upon. Perhaps in an atelier, it may not be so.”

“There’s nothing amiss with your pieces, my friend,” Sabatier attempted to reassure. “I understand your desires, however. But are you sure you would be allowed entrance to an atelier?”

Grantaire could not help but notice the contradiction between Sabatier’s reassurance of Grantaire’s skill and his worry over a lack thereof. How cruel, indeed, to be untruthful in such a manner. Just then, Grantaire did not like his friend very much. Without a word, Grantaire began to pack his things. 

“Will you not finish your piece? Or sit with me, at least?” Sabatier asked.

Grantaire felt a pang of guilt at his friend’s hurt tone, but dark thoughts swiftly found him again. 

“No.”

Predictably, Grantaire went to his friends chambers two days later and threw himself at his mercy, as he apologised profusely and called himself all manner of things. Sabatier seemed overwhelmed, but relieved. Grantaire felt much the same. He was beginning to realise some of what he felt for the other man — what he had assumed to be feelings of friendship were beginning to reveal themselves as something else. Not entirely different, not at all, but different — and overwhelming — nonetheless. 

“I have thought of what you said,” Sabatier said after Grantaire had finished apologising. 

“What a silly thing to do."

“Hush, now. No, I have thought of it. And, my friend… I have come to the realisation that I do not feel entirely suited to our school, either.”

“There’s no need to…” Grantaire began. 

“Hush, man, let me speak!” Sabatier interrupted. “I have thought, I truly have. And I find I feel much the same way as you. I do not have your bravery, perhaps, for I could not admit such a thing to myself. But I do feel much the same.”

Grantaire scoffed. 

“I do not believe it to be anything approaching bravery. Foolhardiness, at most.”

“Whatever the case, you have opened my eyes. And I may have had a word with Baron Gros yesterday.”

Grantaire looked at the man before him, this beautiful man, who had taken him as his friend, who, when Grantaire had abandoned him, chose to pursue actions on Grantaire’s behalf, who so clearly cared for Grantaire more than anyone aside from his mother had ever cared for Grantaire before. And as he tackled his friend with a tight hug that had them both laughing helplessly on the floor of Sabatier’s tiny shared apartment, so loudly that Sabatier’s roommate stuck his head in from the next room to see what had occured, as all of that happened… Grantaire finally let himself realise that he was in love with his dearest friend. 

Both Grantaire and Sabatier ended their studies at the _École des Beaux-Arts_ early and both were allowed into Antoine-Jean Gros’ atelier as new pupils. Grantaire’s family was not well pleased by the development, but they did hold a certain amount of esteem for the Baron Gros and so any truly dire consequences of going off-course were avoided. Grantaire did have to find new chambers, however — his had been meant only for students of the _Ècole des Beaux-Arts_. As Sabatier’s current roommate was leaving Paris, however, that proved to be no problem at all. 

Well, not at first. 

It was around two month into their pupilage with Baron Gros. Grantaire spirits were much lifted by the change. Though the constant still life pictures he and Sabatier were made to paint did not inspire him much, being in the atelier of an accomplished artist was riveting. Gros may have been Bonaparte’s propagandist, but he also toed the line between Neoclassicism and Romanticism, and Grantaire found himself sympathetic to his master’s temperament. 

Even with the constant still life aquarelles. Even so. 

Sabatier, for his part, was overjoyed. He thanked Grantaire over and over for taking him with him on this path — Grantaire felt rather that it had been the other way around, as he was sure Sabatier had recommended them to Gros much better than he could have, but chose to merely share in his friend’s joy as much as he could. 

It was easier for Sabatier, though. Where he painted bowls of apples dutifully and without complaint, Grantaire would sometimes pilfer an apple instead, take a bit or two of it and wait for the rest of the gathered youths to notice and laugh at his antics. He had picked up how to juggle from an older gentleman at a wine-shop, once, and would sometimes practice his juggling with the still life fruits to the delight of Sabatier and a number of their fellow pupils and the exasperation of the rest. 

“Grantaire!” Sabatier cried from the other side of the room as Grantaire was packing his things up for today. 

“Let us visit the Corinth and prepare for tomorrow’s celebration. What say you?”

Louis XVIII had recently died and left the throne to Charles X and now there was to be celebrations on his name day, the day of Saint Charles. The atelier would be closed for the day. 

“I was thinking much the same. It is grand, to have minds so alike, is it not, Sabatier?” 

One of their fellow students, a Dutchman called Vandenberg, snorted loudly. 

“I do not know if I would call that grand!” he called. “Not when it likens one to you, Monsieur Grantaire.”

“Oh, be silent, you pest!” Grantaire responded.

Sabatier just laughed and soon all three of them, along with a few more of the pupils standing around, were laughing. 

“You should all join us,” Sabatier suggested. “The Corinth is a wonderful little wine-shop, and I’m sure all of you could use some liquor.” 

Many voiced talked at once, as some accepted the offer, while others declined for a variety of reasons. In the end, eight of Baron Gros’ newest pupils made their way to the Corinth together. There they stayed the whole afternoon, then the whole evening, and night was approaching before even the first of them got up and announced his leave. 

Once entirely too deep in wine and absinthe, Grantaire got into a fight with one of the eight, a blond man called Jardinet. 

“How dare you mock The Emperor!” Jardinet cried. “He was a great man, a man who did France proud! He rebuild her from the ruins of republican barbarians!”

Grantaire laughed loudly, mockingly. 

“Everything good Bonaparte did, the revolution did first. You speak of barbarians? Any barbarian can kill and conquer. That does not render one great, only a brute. Should we think the ancient viking chiefs great for conquering England?”

Jardinet just gaped at Grantaire in pure, unadulterated indignantion, which only spurred Grantaire on. 

“Furthermore, your emperor was a thief. What the sans-culottes accomplished, he stole from them. What the _Assemblée nationale_ created, he took and called his own. He is not Apollo, but Hermes. And how many youths were fed to the cannons for him?”

“They died honorable deaths!” Jardinet bellowed and stood up.

They had gotten so loud now that others looked their way. Sabatier, too, had noticed and he came running.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please,” he said, slightly out of breath. “Monsieur Jardinet, I’m sure Grantaire did not mean half of what he said. His tongue does the oddest thing when he overindulges.”

Jardinet, who had looked more than ready to punch Grantaire in the face, unclenched his fists as he looked at Sabatier. 

“I pray you’re right,” he just said, before sending Grantaire a dirty look and walking away.

“His father fought for Napoléon,” Vandenberg offered up and Grantaire led out a string of swears. 

“My dearest Sabatier is right, of course,” Grantaire told him. “I lose control of myself — do not mind what I say when inebriated, no man ought to.”

Vandenberg nodded, smiled with a great deal of awkwardness, then went after Jardinet. 

“You certainly know how to keep things lively, my friend,” Sabatier said with a shake of his head. 

After the commotion, not many of their number remained and soon it was only Grantaire and Sabatier. All thought of emperors and politics were soon beyond them, as they drank themselves silly before finally heading home through the cold streets of Paris. 

“When did the way to our quarters become so damnably long?” Sabatier complained around halfway to them. “I can barely walk another step, I swear it.”

Grantaire just laughed at him, until Sabatier really did stumble drunkenly over his own limbs.

“Come, my friend, lean on me,” Grantaire said, and so the two staggered their way the rest of the way to their quarters. 

The very moment they walked in, Sabatier threw himself on his bed with a loud groan. 

“I do not believe we will be up in time to enjoy tomorrow’s free performances,” he said. 

Grantaire dropped down beside him. 

“Perhaps not,” he agreed. 

The two friends were quiet for a while, both attempting to will their rooms to stop spinning and having very little success in the endeavour. It was Grantaire who broke the silence. 

“Thank you for tonight,” he said, uncharacteristically soft. 

Sabatier turned his head towards him.

“What do you mean?” He asked, matching Grantaire’s tone. 

“Halting the fight between myself and Jardinet, for one. Celebrating with me in the first place, for two. You have such a sensibility to my moods, a greater one than myself, even. How can you have known of my melancholy this morning?”

“Your laugh is not the same when you are thusly afflicted,” Sabatier told him. 

Grantaire turned on the bed to look at Sabatier: he loved this man. He truly, deeply, loved this man. 

“You take such care of me. How can that be? Why should you care for me? Why would you? I am not worth much.”

Sabatier met Grantaire’s eyes and through the dark, Grantaire could tell his brows were furrowed.

“You are my dearest friend, Adrien. It’s only natural.” 

Grantaire felt like crying, but instead he did something much more damning: he rushed forward and put his lips of Sabatier’s. All thoughts had left him, he had only feelings and the overwhelming need to act on them. And those few, precious seconds he was granted, oh they were magnificent. All worry and fear and self-loathing left him for those few, precious seconds, where he was kissing Sabatier. 

But they ended soon and with violence. Sabatier pushed Grantaire from him and scurried back on the bed away from him. Grantaire, for his part, froze completely, and instantly sobered. 

For a few long, tense moments, the two merely stared at each other. 

“I am no sodomite,” Sabatier said coldly, and oddly, that coldness was what thawed Grantaire and allowed him to speak: 

“Forgive me, please! It was but a mistake! A confusion! You know how I get confused, especially when indulging in absinthe. Please don’t pay it any mind, my friend. I am stupid! That is not new information to you.”

Sabatier looked at Grantaire as if he was a particularly difficult math equation he was attempting to solve. 

“You swear it?” He asked. 

“I do; I swear it.”

Sabatier regarded Grantaire for a few long moment more, then nodded stiffly. 

“Then let us speak no more of it.”

While Grantaure felt more relief like he ever had before, it was nothing next to how small, how pathetic and disgusting, he felt in that moment where his friend granted him grace by condemning him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t really figure out how art education worked in the 1820s but I did my best? ? The fact that they started out drawing from casts before they got to do live drawing is a real thing, but I have no idea about the kind of time frame that was in play for this. Same re getting to use paints. But, you know. An attempt was made. In general, if you feel like pointing out an historical inaccuracy, I'll be happy to try to fix it! 
> 
> Paul Delaroche was a real dude and this part of his wiki article is what inspired me re how Grantaire and Sabatier entered Gros’ atelier:
> 
> _At age nineteen, Delaroche was afforded by his father the opportunity to study at L'École des Beaux-Arts under the instruction of Louis Étienne Watelet. Delaroche was influenced by his father to focus on landscapes while he was at L’École because his brother, Jules-Hippolyte Delaroche, already focused on painting history. After two years at L’École, Delaroche voiced his disinterest in landscapes and acted on his overall disagreement to the French academic system. He left L'École des Beaux-Art in at the end of 1817. In the year 1818, Delaroche entered the studio of Antoine-Jean Gros_
> 
> I too the names Sabatier, Jardinet and Vandenberg from [ a list of names of Gros’ students: ](https://preliminarygaieties.tumblr.com/post/69047402929/a-complete-list-of-the-students-of-antoine-jean)
> 
> note on this note: I swear i don’t JUST keep using the word “atelier” instead of “studio” to be pretentious it’s also called an atelier in my native language so it’s literally just the first word for it i think of lol


	2. Early 1825

It was not long after Sabatier’s rejection that Grantaire found his way to a bar servicing men of a certain persuasion for the first time. The thought had crossed his mind before — many times, in fact. The awkward tension that had developed between Grantaire and Sabatier only made the thought more persistent, it did not create it. And so, slipping out of their shared quarters alone one night — not an unusual act on either friends’ part, now — Grantaire made his way to a bar near the Seine, the Troie, of which’s nature he had been assured. 

The first time, he merely drank some absinthe while chatting idly with the barman, before taking his leave and going to a nearby café instead. 

The second time, Grantaire had found more confidence and approached his task with greater determination. Again, he bought absinthe and chatted with the barman, but he chatted with others, too. 

The third time, Grantaire made it to one of the backrooms of the bar, where beds were provided for a price. 

While chatting with three of the patrons Grantaire had met last time he was at the Troie, a fifth man walked up to them. He was of a slight build, but muscular and well-dressed for a working man. Had he been of a higher class, one might have called him a dandy. 

“Good evening,” he told them, and the other three greeted him by nickname: Bernadette.

“And who might this new foundling be?” Bernadette asked. 

Many of the men in this bar went by female nicknames within its walls and of those who didn’t, Grantaire found it most unlikely that more than some dusin or so used their legal names. Even did one trust ones companions fully and without question, there was always the question of being overheard. And so, Grantaire introduced himself as Briséis.

“Briséis? My, someone appreciates the classic,” Bernadette said. 

“Myself and the ancients do share some certain proclivities,” Grantaire responded in an attempt to project confidence he did not feel.

The three other men giggled like school boys. 

“Do you indeed?” With these words, Bernadette looked Grantaire up and down with purpose. “I’m afraid I do not fully comprehend your meaning, dear Briséis. Care to show me?”

And so amidst delighted yells and giggles from the three other patrons, Grantaire and Bernadette went to rent a room. As they did, Grantaire tried desperately to let none of his fright slip from his mind and onto his face. He was no stranger to erotic encounters in the general sense, he had already been with a woman before he left for Paris, but never had he been more intimate with a man than the hugs he and Sabatier had shared. 

Grantaire sad down on the bed. Oh, God. He did not wish to think of Sabatier. 

“Are you alright?” Bernadette asked. 

“Of course,” Grantaire hurriedly answered. 

Bernadette looked at him. Grantaire looked away. 

“Well, that is to say… I believe I know what to do and how, one has seen pottery and sculptures to such an effect, and the act can surely not be so very different between men as with a woman. One should think not…”

“You have not been with a man before,” Bernadette said. 

Grantaire did not answer.

“That is not an issue, my friend,” Bernadette said and began loosening Grantaire’s cravat. “If you would follow my lead, I should be happy to introduce you.”

When his cravat was off, Grantaire took of his jacket and waistcoat by himself. Bernadette had done the same, and now he pushed Grantaire down on the bed and crawled on top of him. Then, they were kissing. Not like Grantaire had chastely kissed Sabatier, but deep and wet and desperate. Above him, Bernadette was opening his own pants, and when they broke apart, he produced a small bottle of pomade from his pocket. 

“Come, coat your fingers,” he told Grantaire. 

Grantaire took the vial and started to do so, feeling a bit ridiculous. 

“You must prepare me or it will hurt,” Bernadette explained, before grabbing Grantaire’s hand and leading one of his fingers up his ass. With a bit more of guidance, Grantaire quickly grasped the task at hand, and soon enough he added an extra finger. Bernadette groaned for a bit, then started working on Grantaire’s pants. Grantaire let out a groan of his own as Bernadette's fingers found his cock and started stroking it. 

Soon they were one, big panting mess. Grantaire barely even noticed when Bernadette removed his fingers from his ass, too preoccupied with the actions of Bernadette's other hand. Not, until, that was, Bernadette said:

“I'm ready!”

and guided himself onto Grantaire. Both men moaned loudly and for a moment, they just stayed like that. Then Bernadette started moving. Grantaire let out a string of curses, while Bernadette got louder above him. It did not take long at all for Bernadette to cum and soon enough, Grantaire followed. 

“Fuck,” Grantaire said eloquently. 

“Am I a good teacher?” Bernadette asked. 

“I much prefer your teachings to any other I have received,” Grantaire said and Bernadette grinned. 

“Welcome to the world of buggery.”

As the months went on and Grantaire became a regular patron of the Troie, he began to feel as comfortable between its walls as he did it at any other bar, café or wine-shop. Slowly, the fear of gendarme raids slipped to the back of his mind, and he let himself simply be. He slept with Bernadette once more, but when he tried the opposite position with another man, he quickly found he preferred it. 

One night after Grantaire had grown comfortable, he met two interesting men of his own age and class. He had seen them before; they were regular patrons, as well, and they were always together. Grantaire had seen them walk to the backroom a few times, but even that had been in each other's company. It seemed that they frequented the Troie mostly so they could drink in peace, with no fear of what their drunken state might reveal of them. One was scraggly and light with dark blond hair, while the other was sturdier and darker, with dark hair, aside from his prominent bald spots. Both seemed to be of an excellent temperament, always smiling and laughing whenever Grantaire’s eyes fell upon them. 

“May I sit with you?” Grantaire asked on that night, interrupting whatever conversation the two men had been having. 

The lighter of the two threw out his arms in a welcoming gesture, so Grantaire sat down. 

“I am Jeannine around these parts,” he said with an easy smile. “This is my companion, L'abbesse de Meaux.”

This dark abbess laughed loudly.

“Also known as Bossuet. Not properly, of course, but we aren’t the proper sort, are we?” He said with a toothy grin. Grantaire met it in kind.

“I suppose we are not. I am Briséis. But come, tell me, how one gets such an interesting nicknames?”

“Do you know of the bishop of Meaux?”

“Of course.”

“I am Lesgle of Meaux.”

Grantaire laughed. The Bishop Bossuet was a royalist called the Eagle of Meaux, just as this Bossuet’s real name sounded like it meant. 

“Oh, how brilliant!”

Both beamed at Grantaire’s joy. 

“It was our friend Bahorel who started it,” Bossuet explained. “A handsome fellow, though you won’t find him in places such as this. Do you know him?”

“I do not.”

“A pity. He is a great friend to have. He knows many people, which is why I ask. He has connections with every republican in Paris, or so he claims.”

“That must be why I do not know him. I know few republicans. I take great care to have connections with every man who has no opinion on such matters, beyond the opinion that if he was to have one, it would be likely to get him killed, and that his time is thus better spend with drink, gambling, boxing or other such pursuits. Perhaps the opera”

“Are you one of these men?” Asked Bossuet, who seemed amused rather than put off, as Grantaire had expected — perhaps intended — him to be.

“I strive to be,” Grantaire answered and the two of them laughed.

“Come now, you must allow us to convince you into opinion nonetheless,” Jeannine said. “After all, we would not be meeting thusly if it were not for the revolution.”

In the past, men had burned in the stake for doing what the men of this bar did. Not many, but some had, and the threat had always loomed over them. With the revolution, though, no punishment was arranged for such private acts. Establishments such as this were often raided by the gendarmes, intent on stopping crimes against decency, but Grantaire found it hard to imagine that many such places had existed before 1791. What anti-physics did, they did in the dark, and under assumed names, but not under threat of execution. 

“I suppose that is fair,” Grantaire told them. “You seem like good fellows and good friendship, the two of you, so I will allow it, if only because I am intend upon us being friends and do not think forbidding it would serve that goal very well. I will go with you to Troy, though I wish to stay in Greece. Not tonight, though. You must allow a man to indulge in absinthe without such heavy thoughts on his mind as the future of his world.”

“Of course, of course,” Joly said. “Let us drink and talk no more of it tonight. So long as you will let us raise the topic with you, Briséis.”

“I will, gentlemen, I will.”

“Before we talk too much of other things, we perhaps ought to think of the poor youth who has been looking this way for some time now,” Bossuet said.

Grantaire followed his eyes to a plain man in fancy dress,

“Who does he look at?” Jeannine asked.

“At our new Trojan companion.”

“Then he must be a gendarme. No man would look at me for so long without mockery or trickery in mind.”

“He does not look a gendarme to me,” Jeannine opinionated. “Besides, that is not how they usually operate.”

“I suppose I ought to see if I owe him money, then,” Grantaire said and got up.

“Good evening, my good man,” he said once he stood just in front of the man — who for his part startled at being addressed. 

“He-hello,” he answered, nervously. If he was a gendarme, he was a damn good actor for one. 

“My companions inform me that you have been looking my way for some time,” Grantaire said. “I was curious what could induce any man to take such an odd action.”

The man blinked a few times in confusion, looked around them to check that no-one was near enough to hear, then bended forward towards Grantaire and spoke: 

“You are an artist’s pupil, correct?”

Grantaire’s heart nearly skipped a beat. Was this to be it? Was this to be his end? He would not be executed, no, but neither did it seem likely he would stay at Gros’ atelier, should this man tell of where he had seen Grantaire. He might be able to pay the man off, but not without his father noticing. He would have to make it out to be a gambling debt. Yes, perhaps that could work…

“I have no intentions of blackmail!” the man whisper-yelled and Grantaire let out a breath in relief. 

“Then what?” Grantaired asked. 

“I only…” the youth started, but then embarrassment overtook him. For a long few seconds, he and Grantaire merely stood quietly together, as the youth, red-faced, searched for the right words, and Grantaire merely looked at him puzzled, still on guard from the revelation that this man knew something of who he was. 

“I had wondered, if you might be one of those artists who uses his talents in an, erhm…” Here, the youth’s volume dropped several levels as he nervously concluded: “erotic fashion.”

It must have been a mix of the absinthe and the lingering fear that made it so, for Grantaire’s response was a loud laugh that had the nervous man before him close in on himself like a frightened animal. 

“I might have let my attention go in such a direction on a few occasions,” Grantaire admitted. 

“And how, uhm, much?"

“You wish to purchase such a piece?” Grantaire asked with surprise; he was not certain any of his sketches of that particular flavour where at what he would consider a sellable quality. 

“Or, uhm…” the man stammered, “commision, if you prefer, Monsieur.” 

Grantaire ran his hand through his hair; a nervous gesture he had recently picked up with his hair length. 

“I suppose such a thing might be doable. What would you have me make?”

Initially, the man merely reddened and spluttered as a dying fish might, but eventually, Grantaire did managed to get a description of his request out of him. They made arrangements for the pricing and an exchange of the sketch at the bar on a day about a week into the future, until finally Grantaire could return to his two new friends. 

“That took some time!” Bossuet exclaimed. “What did he want of you?”

“It was no debt at all, but a sell,” Grantaire declared. “Gentlemen, if you should be in want of erotic illustrations, I believe I have just made myself the man you should want to turn to.”

The two men shared a look, then burst out laughing. 

“We will let you know,” Jeannine said. 

The relationship between Grantaire and Sabatier, that had once been so treasured by both, had soured after that one fateful night. They were friendly, still, and did not outwardly let anything show of the event’s effect upon them, but they were in each other’s company less outside of the atelier, and they did not feel at ease in it as they had previously. 

For Grantaire’s new business, this was convenient. In the beginning, he took troubles to only draw his erotic commissions when Sabatier was elsewhere, but soon, he dared put pen to paper even when Sabatier was in the next room. They did not disturb one another often, anymore. They ate together, talked and laughed, but they did not seek one another out for no reason at all, as they would have in the past. As two pieces of land over millennia, they had drifted from one another, and instead of by the century, the ocean between them grew in size by the very day. 

In the atelier, Grantaire found concentration increasingly hard to come by. He painted little still life pictures and watched Baron Gros work on his great works with assistance from his more advanced students, and tried to be less of a nuisance. Now when Grantaire ate of the still life, told bawdy jokes or was loud in any other manner, Sabatier took little joy in it. He was not the only one who had not forgotten that night; Jardinet spoke to Grantaire only when it was strictly necessary to and would glare at him whenever he drew attention to himself. It was unfortunate that Grantaire had let his tongue get the better of him — the man might believe Grantaire a republican! He was not, of course. He was a libertine, a provocateur. He held no love for Bonaparte, but neither did he hold any for Patria and certainly not for the Bourbons or the Orleans. Grantaire loved only art and his friends, and both seemed in the process of throwing him to the side. 

Where art and friendship abandoned him, drink and fucking recovered him. Drink had been a refuge for Grantaire for many years, but now he was fleeing his very life, not moments in it. His visits to the Troie became more frequent and his encounters with other men consequently so. Grantaire took some joy in these encounters, but it was far exceeded by the joy he felt on those occasions where he would forego finding a partner and drink with Jeannine and Bossuet instead.

One night, Grantaire came home from the Troie to find Sabatier waiting for him. 

“You lied to me,” he told Grantaire as he entered.

Grantaire was drunk, and so he did not notice the dangerous tone at first. 

“Did I indeed?” He asked as he took off his coat. “Whatever can I have lied to you about?”

Sabatier sighed and as Grantaire turned, he caught a glimpse of his friend’s face in the flickering candlelight and only then did he understand.

“You swore to me,” Sabatier said and Grantaire felt his breath quicken. “You swore to me that it was but a mistake, that you had merely been drunk and confused after indulging in absinthe… and yet, I have discovered that you frequent an establishment that must render this a lie.”

How? How had Sabatier discovered? Were rumors circulating? Would others know? Would Sabatier make sure they did? Grantaire brain was spinning off its axis as he panicked.

As always, this did nothing to stop his tongue: 

“You forget, my friend: I have been indulging in absinthe often.”

Sabatier glared at him. 

“Be serious.”

“I will not.”

“Grantaire!” Sabatier shouted, and the sudden rise in volume shocked Grantaire so much that he dropped the bag he had been carrying. 

Sabatier looked reticent, but determined. 

“Grantaire, I… I don’t mean to be cruel, but under these circumstances, I can’t live with you.”

Grantaire did not appreciate his former friend’s attempt at diplomacy. 

“I should think it’s not a matter of ability, but a matter of desire.”

“A matter of desire it is indeed…” He said darkly. 

At that, Grantaire lost his temper. 

“What is your objection, truly? You are not so very religious. You believe in liberties. Do we not have a right to personal property, to use it how we see fit? Is my body not my property?”

“You have a right, I won’t deny that,” Sabatier said. “I should think the _Assemblée nationale_ made the right decision. But I should also think there lies a certain difference between believing you ought not be punished and sharing my quarters with you.”

Grantaire shook his head.

“You believe this is no punishment? Oh, but Agamemnon, you are cruel.”

“Now is not the time for your endless references, Grantaire!” Sabatier chided. 

“That is no longer any concern of yours, I should think,” Grantaire replied. 

Sabatier sighed. 

“Grantaire, can we not simply discuss this as reasonable men?”

“It is interesting to know you still think me a man,” Grantaire spat out without meaning to. 

“Grantaire…” Sabatier tried. 

“I will take my leave. I shall return for my things when I have made other arrangements.”

Grantaire picked up his bag, turned around and walked out the door. 

“Grantaire!” Sabatier called. 

This would be the last time he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My conception of 1820s gay Paris is largely based on what I’ve read in _Queer Sites: Gay Urban Histories Since 1600_ , which has a section on Paris. I also based a lot about the Troie on how this 1820s London gay bar is described, however: 
> 
> _Thirty men were arrested on a Sunday evening at the Swan in Vere. In this house one room had four beds in it. Another was arranged as a ladies’ dressing-room with pots of rouge and all the rest of a toilette. A third room was called the Chapel, and here marriages with bridesmaids and bridesmen in attendance were solemnized and consummated by two or more couples in the same room and in sight of each other. Upstairs there were rooms for male prostitutes and their more casual partners. Here it was safer to consummate an affair than in a man’s lodgings as a 16-year-old drummer boy from a Guards Regiment explained to the Ensign who had recklessly proposed dinner and sex at his place in St Martin’s churchyard. Many of the men, even those with large athletic bodies, were effeminate and called themselves Miss Selina, or Pretty Harriet, or the Duchess of Devonshire._
> 
> I also read translations of some of the 1790s pamphlets used in convincing the National Assembly to decriminalise sex between men in _We are Everywhere: A Historical Sourcebook of Gay and Lesbian Politics_ , which is where I have the word anti-physic/anti-physical from, described thusly in the original text:
> 
> _Anti-physics, which its detractors have referred to derisively as buggery, and which the ignorance of several centuries has portrayed as an illicit game of lewdness, and which jurisconsult call beastiality, will henceforth become a science studied and taught in all classes of society._
> 
> And described by the editors as “a common way of describing men who had sex with men, supposedly being counter to the natural or physical order of things.” 
> 
> I have no idea whether the word was still used 30 years later, but I find it perhaps one of the funniest historical labels for queer people so I wanted to include it ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Oh, and pomade as lube is also real, at least according to [ this.](https://punk-solas.tumblr.com/post/182471683919/a-short-and-shitty-guide-to-generic-european) Def feel like it’s more likely people were carrying that around for casual hook-ups than fancy oils. 
> 
> [Anyway Grantaire this chapter lol ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdYgWa5hA_4)


	3. Spring 1825

If someone had forced Grantaire to describe himself with one word, and that word could not be an overtly negative one, he might have chosen the word “impulsive.” At no point was this more evident than after he left Sabatier and their chambers behind for good: he had had no plans for where to go. The only thing he had with him was the near empty bag that had held an erotic commission before he sold it and now only held his wallet, a ribbon he sometimes used to tie his hair back with, and pomade rarely used for a similar purpose. Thusly equipped, he made his way into the Parisian night. It would have been far more convenient had his and Sabatier’s final disagreement happened on a sunny morning than in the dark night, but the Fates rarely smiled on Grantaire and so it did not surprise him that it would turn out this way. Sabatier, who had only known a fraction of it, had not been capable of living with Grantaire’s sinful tendencies. Grantaire wondered how any man who knew the extent of it could ever be expected to do so, if just a snippet of it was enough to drive away his dearest friend? 

Where Grantaire’s head had lacked purpose or direction, his feet had found them; they had led him, once again, to the Troie. It was too late now, though. The bar was closing down, and the few occupants who had yet to leave exited singly and in each their own direction, all wary of having anyone follow them. All, that is, except for one duo. 

Could they be…? 

If they were, could he really…? 

Before Grantaire’s head could decide, his feet had made the decision. 

“Good evening!” He yelled as he ran after them, but before he could say anything more, he found himself on the ground. 

“My God!” Jeannine’s voice exclaimed. “A thousand apologies, dear Briséis, I did not know it was you!”

While Jeannine apologised for pushing Grantaire over, Bossuet gave him a hand with getting back on his feet. 

“No need, my friend, no need!” Grantaire reassured. “I do believe the fault lies with me; I should not have approached you thusly in the dark!” 

“Regardless, I feel bad for assuming the worst,” Jeannine said. 

“I should think assuming the worst is a wise course of action,” Grantaire responded.

Bossuet laughed loudly at that.

“It really is you, Briséis, is it not? Whatever are you doing here? I believe we saw you leave much earlier in the night?” 

“Ah, darkest circumstance has me here with you this night, gentlemen,” Grantaire began. “A betrayal of the cruelest kind; a betrayal of friendship. Yes, I tell you…”

Grantaire had meant to ramble his way through an explanation as was his custom, but suddenly he found himself halting. Then, unsettlingly, crying.

It was rare indeed that Grantaire could not find his words, but this was one of those times. Neither of the two other men said anything either. Bossuet, however, carefully put an arm around Grantaire’s shoulders and then seemed to have a conversation with his partner comprised solely of looks. 

“Do you wish to stay at our quarters tonight, dear Briséis?” He asked. 

Grantaire sank his pride. What little he had of it.

“Yes,” he respond hoarsely. 

Bossuet looked over at Jeannine again and nodded.

“Then it shall be so,” he said. 

“Thank you,” said Grantaire. 

  


Jeannine and Bossuet’s quarters were small and less messy than Grantaire had expected. Two big bookshelves took up much of the space and once Jeannine had lit a candle, Grantaire noticed an open anatomy book lying on their table. The three men had scarcely discussed their lives outside of the Troie with each other, as was the custom at any haunt of an anti-physic. While Grantaire had assumed them students, he had not known with any clarity; now he was certain, and furthermore reasonably convinced that one of the two must be a student of medicine. The illuminated bookshelf was full to the brink of medical journals and the anatomy book, while beautifully drawn, was clearly meant for medical purposes, not artistic ones. 

“You’re in luck,” Bossuet told him and broke Grantaire out of his observations. “For appearances, we have two beds.”

“That is fortuitous; here I had been preparing to sleep on the ground,” Grantaire said, immediately regretting letting that thought slip out. 

Bossuet regarded him for a long moment, then looked towards his partner. 

“I’m glad we ran into you, very glad indeed. Come, now, let me show you to your bed so you can get some rest. I believe what must be discussed is best discussed in the light of day, don’t you agree, my friend?”

Grantaire simply nodded and followed his acquaintance, this man he had only known for a short while and whose life outside their little world he knew almost nothing of, this man who, along with his partner, had decided that Grantaire was worth picking up from the ground, despite barely knowing him… he followed this man to the bed made available for him and fell into a deep sleep almost immediately. 

  


"My real name is Jean-Baptiste Joly," Jeannine — well, Joly — told Grantaire the next morning over breakfast. 

"Alright…?" 

"I believe you may need our bed for more than just this night and that it is better you have this information if you're staying. More importantly, I trust you." Joly made a face. "Besides, being called Jeannine outside the Troie feels odd."

Bossuet chuckled. 

"I am Bossuet everywhere, though I was born Louis Antoine Lesgle."

"I was born Adrien Grantaire. You'd truly let me stay? We hardly know one another."

Joly moved to cut another slice of bread. 

"I don't know that I agree, Monsieur Grantaire," he said while he cut it. "Here we are, three men of a certain persuasion, talking in the light of day and with full knowledge of one another's identities. Does that not mean we know one another?" 

"I suppose it does, at that…" Grantaire said. “And I have been enjoying your company immensely these last few months.”

“And we yours,” Bossuet said. “We must ask, though — and I do apologise for this, Grantaire, for I understand it to be a point of pain for you — what had you wandering the streets last night? Should we worry someone may come looking for you?”

Grantaire laughed, but his laugh was decidedly bitter.

“No, I do not believe any creature should wish to seek me out, least of all the man who put me in your path last night.” 

“And who might that have been?” 

Grantaire took a large bite of his bread before he answered. 

“My roommate and former friend; a man called Sabatier. He is a jolly fellow, or used to be. We met at Rue Bonaparte and were fast friends. I have never had so good a friend as he. But he discovered where I have been going and I do not believe he cared for it.”

“Oh, Grantaire…” Joly said with more pity than Grantaire was comfortable with. 

“Rue Bonaparte? Do you mean the art school?” Bossuet asked. 

Grantaire nodded. 

“My goodness, Grantaire!” Joly exclaimed. “I was impressed by your erotica, but I did not know you had academic training!” 

“Indeed, I do. Although only partial. I am not a man made for the school bench. Every teacher who has attempted to better me could tell you so. And so I and Sabatier left the École des Beaux-Arts and both found a master to study under instead.” 

Here Grantaire paused, momentarily unsure if he should reveal all. 

“I am currently a student of Gros, if a poor one,” he said, having decided that these two men had already proved they deserved his trust. 

"Of the Baron Gros!" Bossuet laughed. "Well, no wonder you are not a republican!" 

Grantaire laughed too; a real laugh, this time. 

"I am no republican, this is true, but neither am I a Bonapartist. In fact, but a few days before I made your acquaintance, I found myself in an argument with a Bonapartist! I called the good emperor a thief and a brute and I’m afraid the gentleman did not care for that talk, for his father had fought for him. It would have come to fisticuffs, if not for…” Grantaire trailed off as laughter left him. “Well, if not for Sabatier.”

Bossuet put a hand on Grantaire’s shoulder in sympathy. 

“You can stay with us as long as you need, Grantaire,” he said and Joly nodded profusely. 

“Gentlemen, you are too kind.”

And so Grantaire stayed with the Monsieurs Joly and Lesgle for the better part of two weeks. During his stay, Grantaire learned that they were indeed both students. The medical books he'd noticed during his first night in their quarters belonged to Joly, who seemed quite delighted to have a new person to attempt to explain this fascinating material to, while Bossuet was a far less enthusiastic student of the law. He furthermore learned that Bossuet was not allowed to handle china as he was so cruelly followed by bad luck that should he do so, it would always find some way to break, and that Joly, meanwhile, was not allowed to conduct experiments outside of his own bedroom – or rather, the room with a bed they kept for appearances – and seeing the scorch marks and different dubious stains around the room, Grantaire understood why. 

On that first day with Joly and Bossuet, Grantaire had not made it to the atelier. He had been to filled with melancholy and anxiety at the prospect, and the company of his two companions seemed to him preferable in every way. He did go back on the second day, however, and when he appeared at the atelier, he found himself worrying, as Sabatier kept sending him disapproving looks. They didn’t speak, however, and soon, Sabatier went on to determinedly ignore his presence all together. Other of the newer students, who had known them to be close companions, gave them odd looks or went so far as to comment in some cases, but Grantaire avoided the topic best he could and it seemed Sabatier was doing the same; he hadn't set out to ruin Grantaire’s reputation, at least. Not that his reputation was one of much value in the first place, but the stories Sabatier could tell would see him shunned and likely thrown out. Things were peaceful at the atelier for those two weeks, if largely dismal. 

On a day where Joly and Bossuet had brought Grantaire along with them to the café closest to their quarters, a tall man who seemed too muscular to be a dandy and yet wore the most fashionable of attire all the same, called out for Joly and Bossuet as he approached their table. 

“Bahorel! Come join our table!” Bossuet said in response, and even before he had said it, Joly had already gotten up to get them an extra chair. 

“Gladly!” Bahorel said and flopped down on the newly fetched chair. “Gentlemen, I have missed you so! I know it is of my making that we have not been in each others’ company and I apologise for being away from you so long without word, but a trip was necessary and alas, you know I am not a great letter writer!” 

“It’s quite alright,” Joly said. “With Bossuet’s luck, any letter would likely have found itself destroyed before it made it to us.”

Bossuet protested good-naturedly, while Bahorel laughed boisterously and Grantaire joined in. This, it seemed, was what it took for Bahorel to take notice of him.

“Apologies, Monsieur, I forget myself,” Bahorel said and offered his hand to Grantaire. “Jacques Bahorel, at your service; a friend of these men is a friend of mine.”

Grantaire laughed.

“There are those who would caution you against such an attitude, not least where I am concerned,” he said as he shook Bahorel’s hand. “Adrien Grantaire. I would return the sentiment, but I have been reliably informed that I can be of little enough service to any man: I can paint you a still life, if that is of your fancy! But paints are not inexpensive and so to make such a offer without reservations is ill-advised.”

Bahorel just stared at him as Grantaire talked, but, to Grantaire’s relief, the moment he ceased, Bahorel’s boisterous laugh could be heard through the café once more. 

“I see why you get along with Joly and Bossuet!” He exclaimed. “I must admit little interest in still lifes, though I do have some weakness for that style which some name _troubadour_ , albeit a slight one when compared to the adoration some of my more Romantic friends harbor for it.”

“It is no trouble, for I so abhor to paint still lifes; I say: fruit should be eaten, not painted! But enough of that. I am not a Romantic, neither in art or in temperament; rather the last breaths of Neo-Classicism can be found in the atelier where I spend my days and as for my temperament, I am rather more the cynic; even though I have more in me of Dionysos than of Apollo, it is the teachings of Pyrrho I understand, not those of Plato.” 

“That means little to me, for I understand only Rousseau and Hegel, and as for that German dichotomy, I reject it and embrace only Prometheus, for his deed was a noble one.”

“And yet his punishment was great,” Grantaire commented.

“But worth it, Monsieur,” Bahorel replied seriously. Gone was the laughter, somehow the verbal sparring between the two had turned from game to discussion, and Grantaire could not say how. For a moment, Bahorel’s dark, brown eyes regarded him intensely, and Grantaire believed him about to elaborate, or maybe reprimand him for his lack of republican fervor, but then he turned his eyes away and asked Bossuet some question Grantaire was too preoccupied to hear. 

“Oh, I haven’t been in some time,” Bossuet responded to whatever Bahorel had said. “You know how I abhor the profession. And the trouble with showing up is that it carries the risk of allowing one to pass one’s exams.”

Bahorel laughed again, having shifted back into amiability seemingly at the drop of a hat. 

“Very good, my friend, very good! You have learned from me after all!” 

“Oh, I have,” Bossuet said. “”Never a lawyer”, isn’t that right?” 

“Never a lawyer,” Bahorel confirmed with a smile and an approving slap to Bossuet’s back.

During his stay with Joly and Bossuet, Grantaire had gone looking for new quarters to rent. Luckily, there was always something to be found in Paris, at least if one was willing to leave the better neighbourhoods to find it, and so Grantaire found himself a room rented out by a middle-aged widow named Madame Deschamps, who was more used to renting to sailors and working girls than to students.

“So these are the quarters. You’d be taking them as they are. You see, I recently got word that my former tenant, a sailor of the name Chevrolet, was lost at sea, the poor dear... Now most of the furniture was mine to begin with, but what was his, no relatives cared to claim. They came and looked, but only claimed his silverware.”

“What a fate!” Grantaire exclaimed. “To only have your silverware claimed; was there not a brooch or a hat, or perhaps some tinderbox characteristic of his person, or even an exotic souvenir of his profession, for some grieving relative to claim?”

Madame Deschamps smiled indulgently. 

“For the first three, my thoughts were very much the same, but where the fourth is concerned, I’m afraid Monsieur Chevrolet sailed only to England and Ireland in all the time I knew him. But we have strayed from the point; you shall have access to all the furniture you see before you. Should you damage any, I should like to see you pay me for it. I live downstairs, and across from here lives a seamstress, Mademoiselle Mariette. And now, what is it you do, Monsieur Grantaire?” 

“I’m an artist’s pupil, Madame. A pupil of Gros.”

Madame Deschamps face split into a smile. 

“Truly? Oh, how marvelous!” 

Grantaire met her smile in kind; it had been a long while since thought of the atelier had made him smile, but he liked the little Madame Deschamps, and besides, it never hurt to make a good impression on a possible landlady. 

“Do you enjoy art, Madame Deschamps?” 

“Oh, I don’t know…” She said, suddenly flustered as if she was a much younger woman. “I do not have much in the way of knowledge of the arts, but… well, my son, he wanted to be an artist, you see.”

“Oh, of course! I should be happy to discuss it with him, should he still have the interest.”

"Oh, I'm…" Madame Deschamps paused and looked away. "I'm afraid he died of cholera several years back."

"I'm terribly sorry; I didn't mean to…"

Madame Deschamps stopped Grantaire with a hand gesture. 

"You weren't to know, dear boy. Now, whenabouts can you move in?" 

Immediately, was the true answer, for the things Grantaire would have to gather from his former quarters where few enough that he could move them on his own, but Grantaire didn’t want to sound desperate and so merely said he could do so in a few days time. 

And so when a few days had passed, Grantaire found himself on the stairs to his old quarters, saying a little private prayer that Sabatier’s habits had not changed in the last week and a half since Grantaire left these quarters. The last few years, Sabatier had taken tea with an uncle almost every Sunday afternoon, and God-willing — please, if He would just listen to Grantaire this once, he’d swear he’d start going to confession again! — there was no reason that should have changed. 

“You needn’t be nervous,” Joly said from behind him. “Are you? Nervous, I mean?”

Joly and Bossuet had insisted one of them come along, so here Joly was. Grantaire had feigned disinterest in assistance, but in truth, he had wanted it deeply, and he should not be surprised were Joly and Bossuet fully aware of this.

“I’m a sodomite about to walk in where I’m known but not appreciated, what do you think, Metis?”

“I’ll be with you the whole way!” Joly declared, with all the conviction of an army general, though none of the gravitas. Well, he was a republican. 

Grantaire stopped before the door to those quarters that contained such happy memories — happiest of his miserable little life, truly — but such horrific ones, too, and he took a deep breath, swore under it for a good twenty seconds, then finally unlocked it and walked through.

Sabatier was not at home. 

Grantaire sighed in relief.

It was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gros was essentially Napoleon’s propagandist during his reign, hence the assumption that his student would be a Bonapartist. Neo-classicism was largely on the way out at this point and one of the reasons Gros was less successful in his last years was for this reason. 
> 
> The “German dichotomy” is Apollonian vs Dionysian, which was popularised by Nietzsche in an 1872 book but had been a thing in German discourse for quite a while at that point and German philosophy was very influential re Romanticism so… we’re going to assume this is realistic, timeline-wise, lol. Anyway, “Apollonian” is like order, reason, restraint, “Dionysian” is passion, emotions, excess, those sort of things. So Grantaire is saying that even though he’s not a very reasonable, restrained person, Scepticism (specifically Pyrrhonism, or so he claims) makes more sense to him than the sort of philosophy Romantics are into.
> 
> My best friend irl is a philosophy student and I ask her a lot of questions and I am sorry 
> 
> [ Anyway Bahorel and Bossuet ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-UEqJ85KE)


	4. 1825-1826

****For a while, nothing much happened in Grantaire’s life, apart from those things which could be said to be routine of it. He went to the atelier, where he found it harder and harder to recall why he had wanted to be there in the first place; he went to wine-shops, where he either enjoyed the company of Joly and Bossuet or simply drank; he went to the Troie, where he either enjoyed the company of Joly and Bossuet or simply fucked whoever could be convinced to want him.

Little enough held his interest, these days. He had lost Sabatier many months ago, but truly, finally having done so still hit him, in a way he would not admit to any who might ask him to speak of it. Joly and Bossuet were dear to him — they have saved him, where few would. The world was cruel, and they were kind. But they were also an “and”, their names and persons forever linked, even in the minds of those who did not know just how much they shared. Grantaire was alone. Not as alone as before Paris, granted; Joly and Bossuet were the truest friends he had ever known – should ever know, he thought. But alone all the same. 

He did meet Bahorel a few more times, though. He was in Joly and Bossuet’s company often. Not as often as Grantaire — by all accounts, he was a busy man, despite the lackadaisical attitude towards his studies — but often enough to make Grantaire feel threatened.

The first time Grantaire met Bahorel without Joly and Bossuet, he had been indulging in some pre-lunch drinking — a bad habit he had been nurturing as of late. Even in his cup as he was, Grantaire noticed Bahorel immediately upon his entrance, for he was dressed in a bright red waistcoat, the vibrance of which was covered only slightly by his dark coat. Such a striking impression did Bahorel’s tall figure make that it was only after Grantaire had called out to him that he noticed the smaller figure walking next to him. Where every piece of Bahorel’s attire looked carefully chosen to complement one another, his companion was dressed in medievalist attire so ghastly that he looked as if he’d dressed himself in the dark, surrounded only by pieces others had left behind.

“Oh, Monsieur Grantaire!” Bahorel exclaimed when he spotted who had yelled for him and eagerly dragged his companion with him to join Grantaire at his table. 

“This is Grantaire, a good friend of Joly and Bossuet’s,” Bahorel told his friend. 

The friend nodded politely, then seemed to take a great deal of effort to look at Grantaire as he introduced himself. 

“Jean Prouvaire, at your service,” he got out, immediately turning red, as if his name and a meaningless introduction might have caused some offense. 

Before Grantaire could say anything — and this was probably a blessing, for in his drunken state, he was liable to only make this Prouvaire more nervous — Bahorel broke in. 

“This is a fortunate event, for I have wanted to introduce the two of you for some time. Do you remember, Grantaire, how the first time we met, I mentioned to you a friend who harboured a great admiration for the troubadour style?”

“Historical paintings,” Prouvaire corrected meekly, but Bahorel merely laughed. 

“Indeed, historical paintings — a specific type of them, however. After all, Grantaire here is a student of Gros, and Gros’ historical paintings are not the type of which we speak.”

“If that is the case — and Indeed, I do not disagree with you in that it is! but if that is the case, I fail to see how this makes it a great fortune that Prouvaire and I meet, at least not in the sense that we should have any great shared interest to discuss among us.”

Bahorel smirked in amusement. 

“Oh, I did not intend for you to agree, only for Prouvaire to be able to share of his stronger opinions with one who might know of what he speaks, for I confess that in this, I rarely do.” 

Grantaire laughed. 

“Come, then, Prouvaire: shoot your cannons at me, and we shall see if you strike me!” 

Prouvaire looked from one to the other, a bit like a mouse checking to see if a cat or an owl might be around before emerging from its hiding spot. Then he spoke: 

“It is true — I do admire the Romantic painters. They paint with the warmth of passion and feeling those who we might call "heroes of the past", but they do not restrict themselves to the cold, rational patterns of Neo-Classicism, or to the moments we might call "great moments of history". They say Romanticism is silly and disordered, we say it is silly to believe the world might be so ordered as they want it to be. In art, a king might hold a foreign artist as he dies, comfort him, instead of being comforted. The unthinkable becomes thinkable, emotion reveals that which rationalism obscures. And I think: if we cannot experience that which is perfectly tragical in art, but only the empty triumph of those groups of armoured men we call "armies," how can we move beyond it?"

Once finally Prouvaire ceased talking, his eyes widened a bit and he looked away, surprised at himself. Grantaire was also surprised; he hardly knew the man, but it was clear he was timid. Those were a lot of words for a timid man. 

It didn't take long for Grantaire to gather himself, however. 

"But is it not unthinkable that a king embrace a lowly artist? Is it not cruel, to convince us it is not so? And by always looking to the past, do we not forget progress? The world will not forget, it will keep moving. Artists must move with it, or they will, as my own master, become increasingly irrelevant. Still, it does not do to forget form. The École clings to imitation too much, I know it to be so, for it was why I left, but is there not yet beauty in recreating what is real, and what has been real? To craft the human form perfectly in paint or stone? I admire the ancients, I bow before _Belvedere Apollo_ and I cry at Homer."

"Monsieur, I should argue that Romanticism _is_ progress," Prouvaire said. 

"You may say so, but how can that be? How can it be progress, to look to the past as Troubadour does? I do not seek to elevate Neo-Classicism: I am a man without belief and an artist without allegiance. I seek only to ask."

"The past shall shape the future, and the retelling of that which we know, but in different form, shall change us."

Grantaire laughed. 

"Monsieur, I am an artist's pupil, and I do not believe art capable of changing men."

Prouvaire looked a bit unsure at the open laughter and shot a nervous glance at Bahorel. Grantaire spoke again:

"It is a beautiful idea, beautiful like Valentine of Milan weeping, and I should wish to believe it — I should wish to be as good a Christian as you."

"I'm not a Christian," Prouvaire said, his eyes going big again immediately upon hearing his own words. 

"Jew, then?" Grantaire's altered brain deemed decent to say. "I should wish to be as good a Jew, then."

Prouvaire shot Bahorel another look and moved uncomfortably in his chair, but then a shy smile appeared on his face.

"I'm really glad I introduced you," commented Bahorel, who had been uncharacteristically quiet during the whole conversation, but was sporting a big, amused smile.

Although Grantaire had been born on a winter morning, he found nothing about them enjoyable. Morning was the worst part of the day any time of year and as for the season, his already melancholic temperament seemed to grow worse with its progress... it was as if he could practically feel the humours become further imbalanced within him as the days got shorter. Soon, as Christmas neared, the few companions he relied upon to cheer him up disappeared home to the South. Even Bossuet, who had only the short trip to Meaux before him, left the city and Grantaire behind. 

Now had Grantaire gone home as well, as he ought to have done, there would have been none to leave behind. But what was home? Was it a place he couldn't bear to be? Or was it where he resided now, a place he liked, even through his melancholia? Was there any sense to returning to a place that had only ever brought him misery, that entered his thoughts only as bad memories or guilt?

Grantaire did not want to return to the South. 

In the end, he wrote to his mother and made some excuse about being ill – and besides, didn’t she know the roads were treacherous this time of year? – and stayed in bed the whole holiday, only leaving it momentarily when he needed to grab some of the, admittedly scarce by the end, food and wine he kept in his quarters. He didn’t even go to the Troie, the holiness of the season chasing away his lust and yearning and leaving him hollow. There was nothing but the melancholia. 

While the holiday passed, his friends reappeared and the days grew longer again, Grantaire’s melancholia remained unchanged. He forced himself out of bed, finding himself lighter and weaker than last he had, and made his way to the atelier. He and Sabatier still studiously ignored each other and still refused to give substantial answer to any who asked them why, but Sabatier was not the problem anymore. The atelier was. Or Grantaire was. Or they both were. It was impossible to say, but all Grantaire knew was that making his way to the atelier was harder and harder each day, the lessons less and less interesting, his work worse and worse and his life bleaker and bleaker. 

If he could just hold out till the season changed, he told himself. He was not made for winter; like the trees, he withered and died, but when the sun returned, so should he reblossom! Hadn’t he always before, after all? His melancholia had been with him as long as he could remember, but it never lasted. 

Except…

The season changed. Flowers sprouted up between the cobblestones, trees regrew their leaves, the streets grew busier and busier as the city thawed and yet… Grantaire remained the same. 

As a child, the local physician had told the Grantaire parents that their eldest son spent too much time inside with his chalks, coals and books, and too little time taking in fresh air and running about as young boys ought to. If one did not get enough country air, it was bad for the constitution, they’d been told, their son silent, but present for the conversation. Grantaire had no doubt this physician would have advised he leave Paris for the countryside for the time being, but Grantaire loved little as well as he loved Paris, so he stayed. Still, the advice played in his mind, as he despaired of what to do with himself, and that was how he found himself involved with a boxing club, where young men, mostly of the same class as Grantaire himself, would spar against each other in a courtyard against payment, which was collected to pay the landlord for use of the area.

This invigorated him for a while, Grantaire reveled in learning to use his body. Where he had simply flailed around in bar fights before, he now understood how to move, and the camaraderie with the other boxers was easy and without strings. What it did not do, however, was reignite his passion for art – particularly not for the atelier of Antoine-Jean Gros. His absences became more and more frequent, until one day when he had shown up, Gros called on him. 

“I haven’t seen you much as of late, Grantaire,” he told him. 

Grantaire highly doubted that the Baron Gros had noticed his absence amidst his many students, especially since Grantaire was so low-rung among them — no, it was more likely that another student had mentioned it to him. 

“I apologise,” Grantaire said, unable to find much else to say. He had no excuse, after all. 

“I hope you appreciate the chance I have given you?” 

Grantaire sighed. Well, when it’d come to this…

“I do, Monsieur. It has been an honour to be here, and to be taught by you, but I… find myself unable to remain.” 

Right after leaving Gros’ atelier, Grantaire had felt some of his long-gone passion return to him. Suddenly, new, great plans had formed in his mind: he would be a great painter independent of Gros’ teachings and his name attached to Grantaire’s! He would work on his own, make a name for himself, paint as he wished to, and not as was the standard of Gros’ studio, not as dictated by the older students! Grantaire would show them all that he was made of more than others knew how to shape…!

As the weeks went on, Grantaire found that he wasn’t. He painted and drew, poured all he had of sweat, tears and blood into his work and still it was no good. The erotic illustrations he made by commission were serviceable for their purpose, but hardly great, and yet they were the only thing to come from his hands in those days that were worth anything at all. He sank back into melancholy, deeper yet than he’d been in it before he left, it’s dark tar pulling him further and further from the light as he gasped and struggled against it. He drank and fucked, ignored his friends, painted the simplest and ugliest things, till he could do it no more. 

Finally, in the late spring of 1826, Grantaire went home to the South and told his family of what had happened.

“You are a disgrace,” his father said. Grantaire had expected him to.

“A failed pupil, a wretch of a man. Who would commission one as you?” 

He was right. Grantaire did not contradict him. 

“Hmm? What say you?”

“I’m sorry, father.” 

“Bah! What use is that to me? You must go study law, as you were meant to. No more foolishness.”

“Yes, father,” Grantaire said.

He had no strength to say anything else and had need of his father’s money. But Grantaire knew, from the very beginning, that he would do as his friends Bossuet and Bahorel and fail to show up. If not by design, then by nature, for Grantaire had wanted to be taught by Gros and had failed. He did not want to be taught by the law professors. 

He left as soon as he could, taking one dinner with his family, then climbing back on a coach on the way to Paris. He still could not bear to be there, though his siblings were almost as strangers to him now. Elise, who had been but a young girl when he left, might marry, soon. He would make it right, he would write her, he told himself, tough the tar tore at him. _You will not_ , it told him. 

When Grantaire returned to Paris, he went out often. He always had, but even more, now. When he went with Joly and Bossuet to the Troie, they would send each other worried looks when they thought Grantaire did not see. They worried especially every time he would leave them to each other, as he went off with some beast of a man and begged him to bring him away from this wretched place. When their worry became too much, he went not to the Troie, but directly to the Champs-Élysées, where companionship was easy to come by, if the time spend together less comfortable than in a room at the Troie. 

Grantaire gained a reputation for being very permissive and he only cared in so much as it made finding willing lovers easier. Grantaire thought: _Those who are blessed by nature can use their appearance — I can used this._ Some days men with strange appetites would flock to Grantaire and for once in his life, he had more than just one option. With time, it became said in the Latin Quarter that every man who would have Briséis had and that Grantaire had had every woman who’d allow him.

Through all of this, he was still sinking down through the tar, the sunlight like a faint memory one might mistake for a dream. He was an animal caught in a net, trying desperately to find a way out of it, but when he struggled, the net only dug deeper into his skin and made him scream and whine in the ugliest of ways while he bled and drowned… 

Grantaire’s melancholia had not escaped the notice of his friends. As a medical student eager to help a friend, Joly offered his advice freely and often. He told Grantaire to avoid vinegar and sour fruits, but seek out spicy food, and encouraged him to take plenty of hot baths. He also offered to perform an enema, which Grantaire hurriedly declined. Bossuet didn’t advise him, opting instead to be insistent in his invitations to the Opera, to wine-shops, to the Troie… to anywhere that was not Grantaire’s own quarters. Bahorel, whom Grantaire had slowly come to know, valiantly attempted to interest Grantaire first in politics (Grantaire increasingly believed in nothing at all, so that was a lost cause from the beginning) then in dress (Grantaire found himself interested for a few days, and even bought some new clothes on Bahorel’s suggestion, but soon lost interest again, as he did with all things now). Little Jean Prouvaire, whom Grantaire found almost too innocent to be near, showed Grantaire a few of his poems, and listened to his harsh criticism with a serious, determined look that seemed almost comical on his childish features, took notes and even thanked Grantaire for his harshness. Grantaire didn’t understand it, but perhaps he lent Grantaire’s opinion credence because he had understood of what he spoke, that first time they met. Lending much credence to anything Grantaire said was a mistake, of course, and he told Prouvaire this, but he merely laughed as if Grantaire was telling a joke. Even Grantaire’s landlady, the Madame Deschamps, took notice, and would sometimes come knocking on his door, asking for the help of a young man for any number of tasks she claimed she was too feeble for, but Grantaire suspected was merely designed to occupy him. 

On a day where Bahorel had instructed all three of them to show up on Place de la Bastille early in the afternoon – and had been instructing many of his various republican associates to do so, as well – Grantaire saw him for the first time. He was one of Bahorel’s associates as well – for Bahorel knew nearly every republican in Paris and had contacts as far as Marseille – and he was among the speakers everyone present had come to hear. He was tall and angular, yet of a feminine build. He had blond hair, curly like the _Apollo Belvedere_ , that stood around him like the mane of a lion as he roared and even from a distance, Grantaire could see, hear, _feel_ the passion in him, in every word and in every movement of his body. He was ferocious and he was beautiful. He almost made Grantaire believe again – in what, exactly, he wasn’t sure – just through the power of his presence. 

“Who is that?” Grantaire asked. 

“Enjolras,” Bahorel said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can’t believe it took me 10,000+ words to introduces Enjoleas lol… suppose it’s what Hugo would have wanted. Fewer notes this time!
> 
> “In art, a king might hold a foreign artist as he dies” is a reference to [ _Francois I receives the last breaths of Leonardo da Vinci_](http://www.petitpalais.paris.fr/en/oeuvre/francis-i-receives-last-breaths-leonardo-da-vinci) by Ingres and Valentine of Milan weeping is a reference to the painting [_Valentine of Milan weeping for the death of her husband_](https://www.getdailyart.com/22495/fleury-francois-richard/valentine-of-milan-mourning-her-husband,-the-duke-of-orleans) by Fleury-François Richard.
> 
> The _Apollo Belvedere_ is a Roman marble sculpture. [From Wikipedia:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Belvedere)
> 
> _From the mid-18th century it was considered the greatest ancient sculpture by ardent neoclassicists, and for centuries it epitomized the ideals of aesthetic perfection for Europeans and westernized parts of the world._
> 
> [ Anyway I would say Grantaire this chapter but honestly Grantaire always rip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1DCoGCVUxY)
> 
> (OUI, JE SUIS GARBAGE)


	5. 1826-1827

This Enjolras that Bahorel had brought him to was in full Jean-Philippe Enjolras, a law student in the first year of his studies, whom Bahorel had made connection with through the republican groupings that tended to spring up around the law school. It occurred to Grantaire that he, too, would be a law student, later in the year. An absurd prospect. 

After the rally, Bahorel had waved at Enjolras and two other young men to join them and it was then he had made introductions. Before he could, however, one man broke into a smile and enveloped Joly in a hug. 

"Joly, my friend!" he exclaimed. "I did not know you were a friend of Bahorel, too!" 

"Everyone is a friend of Bahorel," Bossuet quipped. 

All but Enjolras chuckled at that. Enjolras merely smiled. 

The man who had greeted Joly so warmly was called Jérôme Combeferre and was a fellow medical student.

"And you must be Lesgle?" he said and enthusiastically offered Bossuet his hand, who took it in the same spirit. 

Combeferre was not dissimilar to Bossuet in skin tone, and Grantaire wondered if this made them feel kindred, though in truth, their features were different enough. Though both dark, they had different undertones, different noses, different eyes, and where Bossuet was balding, Combeferre was blessed with an impressive head of hair. They both stood out in a French classroom, however, and this, perhaps, was more relevant than whether they truly looked the same. 

The third man was called Marcel de Courfeyrac, though he protested when Bahorel included the "de". 

"My Ultra-royalist parents may have named me Marcel Gabriel Henri de Courfeyrac, but citizens, I denounce that name and tell you: I am Marcel Courfeyrac." 

"If only denouncing one’s origins was as simple as that," Grantaire found himself saying. "Every man in France would be a king and every woman a queen." 

"I do not believe that," interjected Enjolras. "The people do not desire castles and crowns, they desire roofs to shelter them and food to sustain them. We are not alone in seeing the folly of the rich, of class and of monarchy. The people know there lies a better future in equality."

Enjolras spoke with no less conviction or intensity when speaking to a few companions than when rallying a mob, and now that they were close together, Grantaire could see it not only in his frame, the angle of his chin, the fall of his hair, but in his piercing blue eyes, his flushed cheeks, the parting of lips…

"The people know only this,” Grantaire said, “that the King has food and they have none.”

"And do you not believe such knowledge can be built upon? That knowing that some are born having what they must fight for can be turned to dreams of the Republic? I see no better foundation for progress than that knowledge."

Enjolras’ conviction was almost enough. 

Almost. 

But not quite. 

"And I see no better foundation for greed," Grantaire said. 

Enjolras frowned and seemed about to respond again, but Bossuet spoke before he could:

"You must forgive Grantaire. He was dragged here by friends more republican than he, and he seldom thinks through what he says. He means no harm." 

“Now, listen here—” Grantaire began, but stopped at once when Enjolras met his eyes.

“Are you an Orléanist, then? Or a Bonapartist?” 

Grantaire laughed loudly. 

“An exile or a thief? No. I believe not in king and not in emperor.”

“And not in the people,” Enjolras added. 

“It is true: I am a sceptic. Or perhaps just a libertine. I confess it: I am not clever. But I am happy enough to hear republicanism spoken, whether I believe in it or not. I did not come here to argue.”

There was a tense moment of silence between the eight men, until Courfeyrac's laughter interrupted it. 

“Ah, but if you did not desire an argument, your first act should not have been to disagree with Enjolras!" 

"Monsieur, my first act was not to disagree with him, but to admire him," Grantaire said and immediately cursed his tongue. 

"You have a funny way of showing admiration," Courfeyrac said, amusement still evident in his voice. 

"I'm a funny man," Grantaire simply said. 

The Place de la Bastille was slowly becoming less crowded, men and women leaving in all directions. Their group was also walking away, in the direction of a wine-shop Bahorel had suggested. 

"Feuilly disagreed with me," Enjolras suddenly said. 

"What?" Courfeyrac asked, while Grantaire and most of the others thought "Who?" 

"Pierre Feuilly, Bahorel's worker associate. He disagreed with me when we first met.” 

"Whatever did you disagree over?" Bahorel asked. 

"I said we must liberate France — he said that true liberation must be international."

Though it was of little interest to him, Grantaire would sometimes tag along to republican gatherings. He told himself it was because his companions asked and he wanted to oblige, but they had been asking for years — in truth, he just wanted to feel what he had felt that first time he saw Enjolras. 

And he did. Oh God, did he. He had never been so close to considering himself a republican as when Enjolras spoke. Grantaire wanted to believe. He wanted a world where all could be equal, where the world was not ruled by greed and hate. But he had never believed in it. He had read Rousseau, and found his assertions about the nature of man naïve. He had read the Montagnard Constitution and thought "if only!" But when Enjolras spoke… for a few moments at a time, he believed. It was invigorating. And it was the only cure for melancholy he had ever known to work on himself, aside from the temporariness of drink or opium. 

Most of the gatherings Grantaire attended were simply readings of new or foreign pamphlets, followed by some discussion of its contents. The first time Grantaire took notice of Feuilly, the worker Enjolras had mentioned, he was reading a pamphlet about the enactment of a constitution for Upper Peru – or Bolivia, as it was to be known – and the developments in the young country since Simón Bolívar’s departure. Enjolras looked on intently, while Grantaire lost concentration and focused only on his wine – and on Enjolras. 

"...and though Bolívar was of course reluctant to give his approval, due to his fears that it would threaten…" 

Joly poked Grantaire’s shoulder. 

"You're staring," he said quietly. 

"So? He is too enthralled to notice."

Joly shot him a sceptical look, but then turned his attention back to Feuilly. 

Though Grantaire couldn't focus on his words, he did notice that Feuilly was a more than competent reader – as were Combeferre and Courfeyrac, who were other common candidates. Courfeyrac was particularly popular, as he sometimes acted out certain parts, and could not help but add his own humorous asides as he read. 

Enjolras rarely read for the gathered men – and occasional women – but listened intently, then partook in the ensuing discussion with fervor. _He is made only to speak his own words_ , Grantaire thought. Though he referenced _The Social Contract_ , the _Montagnards_ and Saint-Simon's works often, he did not borrow arguments in their entirety, but made his own — he was a speaker, not a reader. 

During the next few months, Joly and Bossuet dragged Grantaire — or so he pretended, for the sake of his own dignity — along to readings and debates with increasing frequency. One time, he even found himself at a protest concerning the poor conditions for those workmen cleaning the Parisian sewers, an affair that ended in collision with the gendarmes. 

Bahorel was always present, of course, as was Enjolras and his companion Courfeyrac. Feuilly and Combeferre were common fixtures and Prouvaire’s presence increased alongside with Joly, Bossuet and Grantaire’s. There were others, but Grantaire either could not or did not care to remember their names, it depended on the man in question. And so after months of this embering flame, Grantaire heard news that it had engulfed them all. He had not been present, but the men had decided to form their own society. 

"It shall be grand, grand-r!" Joly told him. “Why, we are already talking of protesting against the laws of the press!”

“There’s been much talk of it among the law students for a while,” Bossuet added — mercifully not pointing out that Grantaire was, technically speaking, one of the law students. “Bahorel knows of many groups such as ours already in the midst of planning such a thing, and Enjolras has already taken it upon himself to help with that undergoing! I shall be excited to get involved, as well!” 

“Us medical students don’t have quite so much free time on our hands, of course,” Joly teased. “But I am excited too.”

“Ah, spare me!” Grantaire exclaimed and stood up. “Oi, Gibelotte? A bottle of wine more, if you will?"

The serving girl nodded stiffly towards him, clearly trying her hardest to keep her expression polite. 

"With what do you take issue?" Bossuet asked, putting considerably less effort into hiding his annoyance. 

"With nothing and with it all. Naïve utopianism is dangerous, and I do not wish to see you in danger, but I suppose you must all do as you please – I certainly intend to, for I will not join you!" 

Bossuet was about to say something in return when Gibelotte sat down Grantaire’s bottle on their table, upon which Grantaire exclaimed:

"Ah, wine! Thank you, Gibelotte. Now, my friends, let me drink and let me be! Your politics bore me."

Bossuet huffed and rolled his eyes, and Joly looked annoyed as well, but neither of them seemed to deem Grantaire’s outburst worthy of a reply and after some awkwardness, their conversation instead turned to an opera the three of them had recently seen performed. 

It all went ahead, of course. Grantaire was hardly relevant to their plans. The society was made and the censorship of the press protested and all the while, Grantaire stayed away. He missed listening to Enjolras, he missed the new friends he had been making and he missed spending more time with Joly and Bossuet, but he did not miss the politics. He was tired, he was melancholy still and he was an unrepentant sodomite that saw condemnation in righteousness. He did not miss it. 

After the formation of Les Amis de l’ABC, for that was the name they had settled on, Joly went with Grantaire and Bossuet to the Troie less often — where revelry once resided, thought now did. Joly had always followed his medical studies competently, and with political meetings, protests and the penning of pamphlets — or the editing of Bossuet’s, which was more often the case, for Bossuet was the more prolific writer of the two — he had little time for much else. The two men had, despite their close bond, had an arrangement for as long as Grantaire had known them: if the other was not around to witness it, then one was allowed to fuck who one pleased. Still, it was not something Grantaire had seen in action often — they were usually together, after all. Now he saw it. If Grantaire found himself a partner when they went to the Troie on their own, Bossuet would almost always find himself one as well, and when they went to more usual establishments, he often left with a grisette. Grantaire would often try as well, but most grisettes were not receptive to his charms — with men, it was easier. While he was not considered handsome at the Troie, there his ugliness was looked upon with a certain level of indulgence; to some anti-physics, ugliness was a charming feature. At the Troie, a few women even indulged this opinion, for indeed, skirts were not an unusual sight at the Troie, although most women there were men elsewhere. 

A few weeks in, when Bossuet and Grantaire were taking lunch at a café, Grantaire felt the need to ask: 

“Are things well, with you and Jeanine?” 

Bossuet raised an eyebrow along with his cup.

“You have been together less, as of late. And together with others more.”

Bossuet just smiled indulgently and said:

“A wife is more beloved than a concubine.”

And that was the end of that. 

On one of those autumn nights where Joly studied medicine while Grantaire and Bossuet studied the male form, it all came crashing down. Grantaire had left Bossuet in the bar to retreat to one of the back rooms with a man who called himself Anaïs and was in the midst of being fucked by him when he heard shouts and general commotion from outside. Before he had the chance to say anything to Anaïs, the door flew open, and there he was, cock in arse, staring at a gendarme. Anaïs immediately pushed out of Grantaire, the gendarme shouted something to a colleague that Grantaire didn’t have the presence of mind to register and Grantaire grabbed his trousers and ran towards the window. Grantaire spared only a single glance down towards the street, and none for Anaïs or the gendarme, before he jumped.

The room had only been on the first floor, fortunately, and Grantaire did land on his feet, but when he did, sharp pain shot up through his right food as it made a sound he didn’t like one bit. No matter. Grantaire kept running. He was not the only one; the whole area was noisy, and everywhere men fled the Troie. It had been a busy night, however, and the men running could be no more than a tenth of the patrons. Grantaire thought briefly of Bossuet, of whether he was among the one in ten, but dismissed the thought as he saw gendarmes give chase after other men. He had to keep moving. Grantaire was halfway to his quarters when he finally stopped to put his trousers on.

And then stopped altogether. 

What was he doing? He had abandoned Bossuet. He’d had to, sure. Man was made to look out for himself. Yet… Joly must be informed of what had transpired. He was going in the wrong direction!

Joly’s building was almost entirely quiet when he arrived — it was late. It had been late when the raid started, and Grantaire had been wandering around Paris for quite some time now, disoriented by his shock. Once Grantaire arrived, the quiet ceased. He banged on Joly’s door, saying his name over and over again. It occurred to him, vaguely, that he was crying. A neighbour yelled at him to stop. He didn’t. Then, finally… a very sleepy Joly opened the door. He became instantaneously less sleepy upon the sight of his friend, and rushed him in through the door, closing it behind them and enclosing Grantaire in an embrace. 

“What’s the matter, what’s the matter?” He repeated while Grantaire sobbed in his arms, feeling like the most vile thing, having a man who oughtn’t trust him comfort him. 

“Bossuet,” he got out. “The Troie, it… the gendarmes…” 

Joly stiffened. Grantaire sobbed harder. 

“Did they take him?” He whispered. “My god, Grantaire, did they take him?”

Grantaire shook his head wildly, not unlike a berated dog. 

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” he cried and fell to the floor. 

He felt Joly take his hand. Then with his other, he pushed some of Grantaire’s hair behind his ear so they could see each other once again. Joly was crying quietly, a great contrast to Grantaire’s loud, ugly sobs. 

“You must find calm, dearest. There is nothing to be done for now. I have some laudanum I can give you, once it calms you, you can explain to me what transpired. Does that work?”

Grantaire nodded and they did as Joly had said. Once Grantaire had finished explaining everything he knew of what had transpired, Joly got up and threw a chair to the ground.

“Why?” He yelled. “What has he done? What have we done? What has any at the Troie done? We are as God made us.” 

“God makes us all with weaknesses He wants us to overcome. Man is flawed, we are flawed. Some sins are punished more by men than others, yet they are all sins. The Last Judgement came early this night.”

“Stop it!” Joly yelled. 

Grantaire, who had never experienced him angry at anything but Monarchy and poverty before, immediately obeyed. 

“You don’t believe what you say, so why do you say it?” He demanded.

Grantaire had no answer. 

“Loving Louis is no weakness.” 

Grantaire sank something, hid behind his long hair and shook his head.

“It isn’t. I apologise.”

Joly just sighed, then started pacing. For several long moments, there was quiet in the quarters again. The Joly let out a pained whine. 

“Why did it have to be Bossuet? He is the one among us who knows the law! He’d know what they’d arrest him for, where they would have brought him, how to get him out. Damn it all.”

Grantaire cleared his throat of tears, pushed his hair back and forced himself to look up at Joly. 

“Does… does anyone else know of you?”

Joly stopped pacing to stare at him. 

“None.”

“Not one among your friends?”

“You alone.”

“I, of all people…”

“You. However…”

“Yes?”

“Perhaps we can trust one. At least in this. Surely, even in disgust, a progressive man must see the injustice of this?”

Grantaire stared at him. 

“You risk everything.” 

“Not everything.”

“Everything.”

“Bahorel. We can trust Bahorel. He has known us for years — surely, he is not entirely ignorant? He is a smart man, he knows the law, he knows justice. Surely?” 

Joly looked so desperate for what he was saying to be true that Grantaire could no longer bear to contradict him. He sighed, dried his tear-stained cheeks with his shirtsleeve and stood up. 

“Do you know the way to his quarters?” 

“I do.”

It was almost morning when Grantaire and Joly left the latter’s quarters. Had it been night still, they may have decided to wait and see if Bossuet made it home, but it seemed less and less likely that he should be merely inconvenienced in getting home rather than arrested. And so they went to Bahorel together. 

The sun had risen when they arrived, but Bahorel had not. Once again, Grantaire found himself banging on a friend’s door. At least he wasn’t alone and crying his heart out this time. Joly was nervous beside him, he kept fiddling with the hem of his coat sleeve and adjusting his cravat. Grantaire was still not wearing one, though Joly had lent him socks, shoes, a waistcoat and a coat, insisting that it would do them no good if he caught pneumonia midst all of this. 

After a good amount of knocking, Bahorel stuck his head out the door. 

“Grantaire?” He asked, squinting against the sunlight in the corridor. “Joly? Whyever do I have the pleasure this early?”

Grantaire looked helpless to Joly, who looked as helplessly at him in turn. 

Bahorel observed this with a quietness that was unlike him.

“Come inside, comrades.”

They did as he said. 

Once inside, neither knew what to do. They had made a plan, but not planned it out. Bahorel offered them each a chair and wordlessly placed bread and cheese on the table before sitting down himself. 

“So?” He asked. 

Grantaire looked at Joly. Joly looked at Grantaire.

Damn it. Damn it all. 

“Bossuet was arrested,” Grantaire said. 

“Arrested?! Why didn’t you say so? Is it about Les Amis de l’ABC? Did they discover he was behind that pamphlet on slavery in the colonies? Why are we here? We must go to him, and send message to our comrades, we must—” 

“It’s nothing of that sort, Bahorel,” Joly reassured. 

“Then what?” 

“Do you know, Bahorel, that I like the Champs-Élysée?” 

“Capital-R!” Hissed Joly. “Do you really think _that_ is the correct way?”

“I believe most like the Champs-Élysée?” Asked Bahorel. 

“Evidently not. Fine. Joly, since you will not: I’m a sodomite. There. Now you have it. I’ll leave if you want me to, though I will curse you if you do. You’re hardly the most virtuous yourself, so I don’t see why you should get to judge.” 

Bahorel simply stared at Grantaire for a very long moment, making no comment on what he had just heard and no real facial expression to portray his feelings on it. 

“And Lesgle?”

“The Eagle too.”

“You two…?”

“Oh God, no! Could you imagine?”

The latter part was directed at Joly, who now gained Bahorel’s attention. 

“So, you…?”

“Yes.”

“Then why is only Lesgle arrested?”

“The gendarmes came not upon the bathing Nausicaa and her maids, but upon Bacchanalia. I escaped, Bossuet did not; Joly was not there.”

“I see.” 

Silence reigned in the room for several long moments, then Bahorel sat about cutting a slice of bread and a slice of cheese for each of them.

“It is too early yet to go to the jail — they do not start work for a while. When we have eaten, we shall go and find where they have Bossuet, we shall find out what he is charged with and we shall make sure he is not imprisoned further.”

When Bahorel presented each of them with a plate of bread and cheese after proclaiming his intention to help, Joly burst into tears.

“I apologise,” he said, hurriedly wiping the tears away. “I’m simply so relieved that you’ve agreed to help us, but so scared for Louis, and for every other man who was caught tonight, and I do not… thank you.” 

“You are my comrade, Joly. I show my comrades solidarity.”

They ate in silence. Two men were exhausted, one was sleepy — all had much to think over. Once they finished their food, Bahorel went to put on a tailcoat and prepare to leave. Joly got up to join him, but when Grantaire rose, he had to yelp in pain. In his frenzied escape, all thought of his injured ankle had been forgotten, and once Joly had given him laudanum, the pain had disappeared for a while. Now it insisted upon making itself known again. 

“Grantaire, are you hurt? You did not tell me you were hurt? What occurred?”

Joly was already liberating Grantaire’s right foot of it’s shoe and sock. Grantaire took Bahorel’s presence into account and refrained from making the sort of lewd comment he might normally have at this undressing, and simply said: 

“Like Icarus, I could not fly.” 

“Grantaire.”

“I jumped from a window. I was, ah. In an upstairs room — you know the one?” 

“I gathered as much from the state of your dress, but I did not realise you had escaped by window!”

Grantaire shot Bahorel a quick look. He could not decide if his eyes were truly wider or if he was merely seeing what he expected to see. Joly did something to his foot and he hissed in pain. 

“I believe it is sprained,” Joly said. 

“And?”

“You ought to rest your foot.”

“You expect me to stay here? Joly, I abandoned him. I abandoned them all. The rooster had not yet crowed and like Peter I ran. And now you wish me to stay put?”

“You could have done no different, R. You came and told me of what had transpired — where would Bossuet be without that? Sat somewhere, I none the wiser. You would be trapped too. You acted the only way you could.” 

“You prescribe motive to my actions that did not exist.”

“Self-preservation is motive enough in this matter.”

“No. I will not stay here.”

Joly sighed, touched Grantaire’s cheek gently and looked him deep in the eyes.

“Grantaire, dearest, you’d slow us down. I want two things only: to get to Louis post-haste and for you to rest your injury. Is that too much to ask for?” 

At that, Grantaire relented. 

The wait was hellish. For a time, Grantaire merely sat where his friends had left him, contemplating all that had happened. He wondered idly if Anaïs had made it out... he doubted it. Anaïs was big and brawny, and in his mind Grantaire saw him fighting the gendarmes every step of the way, as they pulled him down the stairs. He'd serve months for that violence… Bahorel had primed them all before that one protest Grantaire had attended: if you enact any violence upon a gendarme and they catch you, that is at least a month of imprisonment, most likely more. Of course at a rally, other laws may take precedence, but where another could not be found, fighting back would be enough. Grantaire hoped Anaïs had not fought back, but that seemed as likely as supposing Bahorel wouldn't. Bossuet might have found it in him to stay calm — he was hardly predisposed to violence, and he knew the law as well — but Grantaire worried still. He was easily swept up in a mood, their eagle, and reason may not have prevailed. At least Bahorel seemed secure in his ability to get him out. 

Bahorel… how else had he seemed? Not much at all. He had not wanted them to know his reaction, perhaps. That said reaction did not preclude helping them or simply treating them with civility was on its own a great fortune **—** whatever lay behind that was for Bahorel to know and Grantaire to leave alone, he decided. 

Once Grantaire could no longer bear the sound of his own thoughts, he got up, keeping weight off of his bad foot by instead leaning on a chair. He stumble towards Bahorel's bookcase, grabbed its side to lean upon that instead and started examining its contents. Law books dominated, but a whole shelf contained almost solely politics — a large German dictionary separated the political books from a great collection of pamphlets. Grantaire had no great interest in reading any of it, but finally his eyes caught upon _The Sufferings of Young Werther_ and he discovered Bahorel's fiction collection. Grantaire picked out Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ from it and scuffled back to his chair with it. 

He must have fallen asleep while reading, for when he heard Bahorel's voice shout for him, it shocked him awake. He got up quickly, momentarily forgetting his foot, swore at the pain, then awkwardly made his way to the door and opened it. 

Bossuet had a black eye and blood on his shirt.

That was the first thing he noticed. 

The second thing he noticed was that he was draped between Bahorel and Joly, an arm over each of their shoulders. 

The two men hurried the third past Grantaire and to Bahorel's bed where they lay him down. Joly set about looking at his injuries immediately, while Bahorel collapsed in a chair across from Grantaire with a loud groan. 

"So?" Said Grantaire a bit later. 

Joly was talking quietly to Bossuet in the background while cleaning his wounds. 

"A fine."

"Only?"

"I made a bribe to make it so." 

"Else?" 

"Else he would have been charged with violence against an agent of the public force."

"Violence! Those brutes! They would have you lie down when they strike you," cried Joly from the corner. 

"Just be glad they were not attempting to charge me with an outrage against modesty," Bossuet sat up and said. "Many were thusly charged, and we shall not see a single one of them before spring, I guarantee it. We shan't see Tante Rosalie again at all. She shan't survive the hard labour." 

Tante Rosalie was how the Troie patrons had referred to its owner, an older, impressively moustached man who had an intimidating air about him but was sweet to any who engaged him in conversation. 

"Shit. I did not even think of her fate… Cruel, wretched world."

"At least we have you back among us," Joly attempted to reassure. 

"What am I? One man. They took many. Not all have friends versed in the law. Not all have friends who would know to look for them. Not all have friends who should desire to help when they know of the circumstances. My presence was unlucky, my circumstance was fortunate. Do you know, Grantaire, that they caught Anaïs?"

"I feared."

"They did. And she shall be charged with indecency, although your act took place in private, I am sure of it. They shall say: the wine-shop is public, so it is not private. That is how they shall convict her."

Bossuet had to pause to regain his breath, but soon continued on. 

"And every man dressed as a woman shall gain the same sentence, of course, even if the gendarme would not have known her from a woman if he saw her on the street. I believe a breeched woman or two were among us last night, they shall hear the same verdict: their dress is an outrage against modesty. Modesty — modesty! Who decided that the law deal with modesty? We rid it of God, but wrote in modesty. Damn it all, today Grantaire is correct: the world is wretched."

None knew what to say. Grantaire felt the same, but he had not been there. Bossuet's eyes were filling over with unshed tears. 

“Louis…” Joly said softly, a hand on his chest. 

Bossuet locked eyes with him and the act seemed to calm him. He laid back down. None said anything as Joly fussed over his lover’s injuries some more. Only when he began whispering to his Louis was the silence broken, and Bahorel walked over to Grantaire. 

"Let us leave them be, yes?" he asked quietly. 

Grantaire nodded and to the two others Bahorel said:

"I shall assist Grantaire home and make sure he has what he needs while inconvenienced. Shall I need to get anything from the apothecary, Joly?" 

"Rest should suffice."

"Very well. I shall return later."

"Stay off your foot, Grantaire."

Grantaire felt too guilty, too sad and too exhausted to do anything but agree, let Bahorel take hold of his arm and, as was in every way against his custom, leave quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder to non-European readers that in Europe the first floor is what some of you would call the second floor. 
> 
> This is the law I'm assuming is what people mean when they refer to men who had sex with men (and crossdressers and trans people, one assumes) being arrested for public indecency:
> 
> “330. Whoever shall commit any public outrage against modesty, shall be punished with an imprisonment of from three months to one year, and a fine of from 16 to 200 francs.“ [ X](https://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/france/penalcode/c_penalcode3b.html)
> 
> I read somewhere that this was the earliest such law — that pre-1800s law didn't really concern itself with "public indecency" as such. I can’t find the source now, will put it here once I do (or once I find a different source to the same effect). 
> 
> What Bahorel got Bossuet's sentence negotiated down to is probably "insulting an officer of the public force" which is only a fine (while being violent towards an officer, ie resisting arrest, was one to six months).
> 
> As for the owner, he was probably charged either with illegal brothel keeping or with corruption of youth. Or both. 
> 
> Since all kids wore dresses until a certain age “breeching” referred to when a boy first started wearing trousers. Thus by “breeched women” Lesgle means dfab people wearing men's clothes.
> 
> [ Anyway the Troie getting raided like](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmR3p3-LN94)


	6. October 1827

"So is our Hercules shocked?" Grantaire asked before he could stop himself. 

Bahorel had walked him all the way to his own quarters, as he said he would. They had spoken little. Now they were at his quarters and Grantaire could hold his tongue no longer. 

After letting go of Grantaire, who had promptly sat down, Bahorel had gone to check what foodstuffs Grantaire had in. Now he stopped, though he was still turned away from Grantaire. 

“Shocked? I do not know if I am shocked. The behavior of the gendarmes does not shock me. Bossuet is not the first comrade I have rescued from their claws.”

“But the first you have rescued for this transgression. Or?”

“The transgression of meeting like-minded people and being beaten till you strike back for the content of the meeting? I have bribed many a gendarme to forget that transgression.”

Grantaire threw back his head and laughed. 

“That amuses you?” 

“You avoiding the matter of my question amuses me.”

“I do not avoid it; I rephrase it.”

“No? So you do not believe the nature of the wine-shop matters?”

“It matters — It would not have been raided otherwise.”

“And to you?” 

Bahorel sighed heavily and finally turned around. 

“Grantaire, I will not claim to understand it. I have only ever looked at men with brotherly affection, or the affection of a son towards his father. I will not even claim to have thought much upon it before today. Perhaps if I did, it was not with kindness. I do not recall and it does not matter. What I have seen today is an injustice — that is what matters. I see no difference between the violence of the gendarmes last night and the violence of the gendarmes when they intercept republican gatherings. An injustice is an injustice. _Fiat justitia, pereat mundus_.”

Bahorel’s words shocked all mirth out of Grantaire. 

“You republicans… I have never heard any speak of it in such a way before.”

Bahorel smiled ruefully.

“Then perhaps you ought to rejoin us.”

And so Grantaire did, after a few weeks. Not because he imagined anything would change, nor even because Bahorel’s words had inspired him, but because the raid of the Troie had left him so deep in the tar of despair that what little table scraps of hope, of conviction, he could pick up at the Les Amis de l’ABC meetings was all that kept his head above it and let him breathe. 

Though Grantaire’s ankle had healed, Bossuet’s injuries faded and the building where the Troie had once resided been bought by another and turned into a gambling hall, the wounds of that night still lingered. The migration of the Troie patrons to other wine-shops or cafés was slow, so as were the news. Once he started frequenting a place called Café Alexandre, Grantaire ran into a friend of Bernadette only to learn that he had been in a dress that day and had been given a sentence of 6 months imprisonment. On another day, Grantaire was on a street in the Latin Quarter and a close friend of Anaïs came up and slapped him in the face, before his companions could stop him.

“He got a year!” the man shouted tearfully at him, while his friends made apologies for him as they pulled him away.

The worst were the ones they never heard from again, however. Some must have been imprisoned, while others might merely have been scared off, but it was impossible to know exactly what had occured. The anti-physical world was an ever flowing river, it was the ship of Theseus falling apart so rapidly that one never got the chance to say goodbye to any of its parts. At least it had not cast of Bossuet. That was all Grantaire could feel thankful for. And all he delighted in was his friendship with the men of the Les Amis de l’ABC.

Most of all, it was seeing Enjolras in action that kept him from drowning. Grantaire found himself observing him often, and he found him to be a man of contradictions. While he was a lively participant in most political discussions, especially those concerning revolutionary tactics and the structuring of the new republic, he was quiet outside of meetings. Where stood a lion, a young boy sat instead. The hair that seemed so feral when in action served only to make him look younger when still. He did not care for a light approach to the guillotine and yet he excused Robespierre. He sneered at reformists, but allowed the presence of a nonbeliever. 

After forming a society, the group had set about finding a more permanent place to meet; most cafés or wine-shops would accept the occasional illegal gathering, but not the weekly one. Bahorel had charmed the owner of the Café Musain and they been allowed its backroom. Upon his first time entering it, Grantaire saw the great collection of red flags piled up in one corner of the room, and felt a mixture of the awe of a school boy seeing his fellow accept a dare and the amusement of a sceptic listening to a declaration of certain knowledge.

One day in this backroom Enjolras and his good friend Combeferre were the leading men on each side of an argument concerning how to go about transforming French society after the revolution. Enjolras did not care for violence, but he was firm in his belief that it was a necessary evil, that those at the top would never let go if one did not remove the head of the beast. Combeferre, who preferred pacifism where possible, was more in favor of banishment or monetary restitution. Enjolras' second was Courfeyrac while Combeferre's was, of all people, Prouvaire.

Grantaire had been out late the prior evening, one of the first since his ankle got well enough for revelry, and was quite drowsy. While he listened, he found his thoughts drifting as if in dream. He saw Enjolras turn those intense eyes on him, turn that sense of purpose towards making Grantaire kneel before him. He saw himself look up at that godly face, still stern and damning, and Enjolras would grab his hair and make him take his cock, and… 

Grantaire forced himself out of the daydream. 

But by God, he was disgusting. He knew his desires well enough, he did not regret those – but to project them on Enjolras? Enjolras, who was so pure and beyond reproach… and while he was present, no less! How could he defile him so? 

"More wine?" Joly asked and there was a teasing glint in his eyes that Grantaire studiously ignored.

"Yes, if you would be so kind." 

While Joly poured wine in Grantaire’s glass, Grantaire considered him. 

"How do you find Bossuet's new quarters?" 

"Unnecessary," was all Joly said at first. 

After being arrested, Bossuet had been written up in the pederast registry and had subsequently attempted to convince Joly it would be safer if they did not share quarters for a while. Joly remained unconvinced, it seemed, but Bossuet was living elsewhere nonetheless. 

Joly sighed. 

"I'm through arguing it with him, though. The quarters seem well enough. They are cheap and reasonably clean." 

Grantaire got the feeling that this constituted everything positive Joly had to say about them. 

Once recovered and resituated, Bossuet had taken it upon himself to pen a pamphlet about that night. He described all he had seen and all he had heard of it since. He questioned Grantaire to hear what he had seen as he fled and valiantly attempted to make Grantaire proofread it. At first Grantaire adamantly refused, but eventually he let in. He could only bear to read it the once and give his opinion on that version, and he made sure to get outrageously drunk afterwards, so as to recall as little of it as possible. He fucked a woman that night. 

About a week after its release, that pamphlet made it into the hands of one of those Les Amis de l’ABC members Grantaire could not recall the name of.

“ _On the Pederast Raid of 22 October_ ,” he read, to some low, scattered murmurs and giggles. 

“ _A wine-shop which shall remain unnamed, but which has for some years courted the patronage of pederasts, buggers, bardaches, travesties and whatever else word one might wish to use to describe this group of men who are drawn to their own sex, was on the night between 21 and 22 October attacked by the gendarmes. Most present were not conducting themselves illegally; those who were committed crimes only against modesty, not against a fellow citizen. Most did not wish to fight, but the gendarmes had the wish to beat us, and thus many were forced to fight back. Many were imprisoned, in appearance for these crimes, in truth for the crime of pederasty._

 _Citizens, think it over: the crime of pederasty was done away with by the Assemblé nationale. Whatever one’s personal beliefs, there is in France no law against the practice of buggery. Is it just, then, to persecute the bugger? The bugger, too, is a citizen and entitled to the rights which nature decree that all men are entitled to._ ”

The pamphlet continued in the same vein; once it started speaking of legal theory, Grantaire lost focus. It was a topic Bossuet managed to be astonishingly well-versed in, despite his lackadaisical attitude. Grantaire wondered idly if Bahorel had been impressed upon to proofread the pamphlet as well, or if his comradeship in this matter was not deemed wise to put to the test. 

Predictably, the discussion afterwards was a lively one. Bossuet, whom Grantaire was sitting with, remained mostly quiet throughout, attempting to appear as if he was presently more occupied with drinking with Grantaire than with the discussion. Joly was blessedly saved from the awkwardness. When they had gone to fetch him earlier, he had been so convinced he was coming down with an illness that he had told them to go without him. Had he known what to expect of the day, Grantaire might very well have convinced himself he was ill, too.

“It is typical of the bourgeoisie to find justification for their indulgences,” one man said. “If they want it, they shall find some way to justify it. It is always so.”

Some of his fellow workers laughed at that; most of the students seemed too shocked by the topic to take it lightly. Bossuet’s grip on his cup tightened so his knuckles stood out. Grantaire, who already felt very far away from the Musain’s backroom, took a deep drink of his. 

“There are working men among the pederasts,” Feuilly objected. “Or have you never met a sailor, Salinas?”

At that most of the workers laughed, as well as a few of the students. 

"Oh, aye, I do not doubt that. But the working pederast would have the good sense not to attempt to justify his actions with the language of progress."

“Whatever the case, the matter in question is not the morality of buggery, but the immorality of the gendarmes,” Feuilly argued.

“In that I agree with you,” Bahorel said. “We know it to be a common tactic of the gendarmes to arrest a man for one thing on paper, but another in truth. The practice of charging self-defense as if it were assault is another familiar one. I believe that is the center of this matter, not the practices of the pederasts.”

“Indeed. This behavior of the gendarmes is yet another overreach of theirs.”

Grantaire looked up. Had that been…?

Enjolras was sitting at a table with Combeferre and Courfeyrac, looking severe as ever. He had not partaken in the discussion so far — he was often less inclined to, when the topic was not the Republic — but his eyes were trained on Bahorel and Grantaire felt certain it was he who had just spoken. 

“Yet can we truly separate the case from its context?” asked a student. “The act of buggery is a religious crime, not a legal one, and so it should not be dealt with by the law; I see the logic in that. Yet it is a type of crime, and the author himself admits that legal crimes were being committed at this wine-shop as well – does it not make sense, then, for the gendarmes to involve themselves?”

“The immorality of these men cannot be forgotten, even as we talk of the immorality of the gendarmes,” agreed another.

Though Bahorel and Feuilly valiantly attempted to keep the discussion on the topic of the raid, it proved impossible to stop it from becoming a discussion of buggery. Those who had already spoken thusly said it was a sin, thus should not be protected. Others suggested that the gendarmes might have had to be rough, in an environment so rich in roughness. One even said he felt the Aseémble national had been forced to make it legal by nefarious bourgeois groupings, and that the decriminalisation had been a mistake. This was countered by many, who were quick to point out that the argument against pederasts was a religious one, and that they did not want the law to be religious. Bossuet excused himself at some point and thus missed Prouvaire pointing out that the ancient Greeks had embraced the practice completely. 

After around 15 minutes of this, Enjolras, who had been quiet through out, apart from that one sentence, stood up. 

“What a man does in private is his own business,” he declared, eyes blazing and mane flaring. 

And the discussion ended. 

After the meeting, Prouvaire came up to Grantaire and Bossuet. 

“I have something I wish to discuss with you,” he declared. “In private.”

Grantaire and Bossuet shared a significant look. Had Prouvaire discovered something he oughtn’t have? If so, what purpose could speaking of it serve? 

“My quarters are close,” Grantaire said and the three men walked to them in uncharacteristic silence. 

“So?” Asked Bossuet once they were all situated around Grantaire’s table. 

Prouvaire looked up at him, looked at Grantaire, then blushed furiously and looked down at his hands instead.

Grantaire and Bossuet shared another look. Prouvaire continued blushing and not speaking. 

“If this is about that content of today’s meeting which initiated the fiercest discussion, but which neither I nor Bossuet participated in, then I suppose I must tell you that if you suspect a reason for our silence, that suspicion is indeed—”

“Grantaire, honestly!” Interrupted Bossuet. “Have you never learned to hold your tongue?”

“I thought I did an admirable job of it earlier, was that not what I was just talking of?”

“By God but you are an imbecile.”

“Who is? Who is? Does he not know already? Do you fear Benjamin?”

“Perhaps I fear Potiphar.”

"I want to visit a pederast wine-shop with you!" Prouvaire exclaimed, effectively ending the argument between Grantaire and Bossuet. 

His face was still red with embarrassment, perhaps more than ever now, but he slowly forced his eyes open and his face level with theirs. Grantaire and Bossuet looked at each other. 

"Well, we're frequenting a café right now, not a wine-shop…" Grantaire began and Bossuet slapped at his shoulder.

"We'd be glad to have you along," He told Prouvaire, who broke into a smile. 

The first two times Prouvaire went with them were uneventful. He stayed only with his friends, far too shy to talk to anyone else, and merely sat there quietly the first time around. He made big eyes when he saw dresses among the patrons, and on his second visit he found the courage to ask about them. 

"Everyone dresses as they see fit here," Joly told him. 

"But are they…?" 

"Most are men elsewhere, yes," Grantaire said. "And I believe the blond gentleman at the next table over is usually a woman."

"Oh don't be rude," Joly chided Grantaire, while Prouvaire tried his best not to stare at anyone. 

The third time Prouvaire was at the Café Alexandre, Grantaire only joined his friends later. 

“Now who’s this little lady!” he exclaimed upon spotting his friends. 

Prouvaire was sat next to Joly clad in a dress. Where he never managed to dress well in men’s clothes, the dress suited him well – it was the same dress Joly had worn the one time Grantaire had seen him dressed thusly. 

“Jeanne, is it not?” Asked Joly. 

“No, no,” Grantaire protested as he sat down next to the lady in question. “It must be Jehanne!” 

Prouvaire simply blushed. 

“See!” He said and poked Prouvaire’s cheek. “Only a medieval maiden might blush like so!” 

“Stop teasing her already,” Bossuet said. 

“I do like Jehanne,” Prouvaire added shyly. 

“Ha!” Grantaire exclaimed triumphantly. “The lady has spoken, and she agrees with me, of course. You know I am more well-acquainted with the fairer sex than anti-physics such as yourself!” 

“If we must speak of such things, Monsieur Capital-R, I dare say nothing I have seen in my many years of buggery has looked quite so counter to the physical as that dalliance you took upon yourself to indulge in most recently,” Bossuet countered. 

All three men laughed raucously. Jehanne’s face had flared up at the mention of buggery and had not returned to normal once they ceased laughing. 

“Besides, I know Jeanine to have made the acquaintance of a lady as of late.”

“Oh, is that so? Can that be? With what did he poke her? 

“Oh, be silent!” Joly cried. “She is a very clever girl and I like her very well. If she and Bossuet like each other, we shall see if we might not yet find ourselves with a female presence in our lives.”

“Oh ho ho! _Ménage à trois_! Does she yet know she is not the only one being poked?”

“I do not know.”

“How can you not know?”

“I have not told her of it, but as I said, she is clever. She might know without me telling her.”

“That is to say, you wish that is the case.”

“Stop pestering him, Capital-R,” Bossuet interjected. “Show Jehanne your erotica, instead, that ought to be more interesting.”

Grantaire obliged and Jehanne blushed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire is actually *less* into women than both Joly and Bossuet are, he’s just being a nuisance for the hell of it
> 
> Some of Bossuet’s pamphlet is inspired by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs argument for decriminalisation of homosexuality in _Araxes: A Call to Free the Nature of the Urning from Penal Law_ from 1870 which is anachronistic but the closest thing I had on hand to model it after, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ This bit, in particular, is one I stole from:
> 
> “The Urning, too, is a person. He, too, therefore, has inalienable rights. His sexual orientation is a right established by nature. Legislators have no right to veto nature; no right to persecute nature in the course of its work; no right to torture living creatures who are subject to those drives nature gave them.
> 
> The Urning is also a citizen. He, too, has civil rights; and according to these rights, the state has certain duties to fulfill as well. The state does not have the right to act on whimsy or for the sheer love of persecution. The state is not authorized, as in the past, to treat Urnings as outside the pale of the law.”
> 
> Btw, “travesti/travesty” at this point in time basically meant crossdresser (with connotations of parody) and it’s the origin of the word transvestite. 
> 
> Also I didn’t intend to be naming the Café Alexandre after a real place, I was just going “well, what’s a famous gay” but today I was looking for something else in Queer Sites and came across a Café Alexandre from 1780 so. Maybe the owner of the new Café Alexandre went to the old one when he was young, who knows. Gays are always out here naming things after Alexander the Great, that’s for sure.
> 
> I changed the chapter number because things are getting longer than I thought they would, but it's still an estimate.
> 
> [ Anyway all the queer amis listening to this debate like](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlpcyeadaTk)


	7. November 1827, Part 1

While recovering from his injury, Grantaire had talked more with Madame Deschamps than he ordinarily did. Normally, she would bring him breakfast in the morning and inquire about his day, but that was it. Upon seeing his injury, however, she had almost forced him to take his supper with her, so he need not walk further than strictly necessary. 

"It's frightful how many young men live on their own these days!" She told him during their first supper together. "It's a curse of the times, I tell you. No-one ought to live on their own, now that's what I say! Young men especially – with no-one around to take care of you, what are you to do? Are you yet betrothed, Grantaire?" 

Anxiety filled him at that question, and he took his time chewing before he answered. 

"No, not yet, Madame." 

Grantaire didn't doubt that his parents might have some notions of which young women they would like to see him wed too, and indeed, maybe he would be met with a list of options from his mother next time he returned to their estate… yet so far, he had escaped that fate that many young anti-physics feared. 

"And how old are you?" 

"23, Madame. 24 in January."

"Almost 24 and yet not betrothed! Well, I suppose it is not unusual, but if you were my son, I should like to see you wed soon! I should like to know someone was taking care of you."

"Ah, but Madame, with you taking such good care of me, why would I need any other woman?" 

"Oh, don't be silly, Monsieur Grantaire. I'm merely doing my bit, a wife would do much better." 

Despite her words, Madame Deschamps cheeks had flushed with pleasure at his compliment, and after that day, it was clear she'd taken quite a liking to him. Sometimes, if she happened to spot him as he was leaving his quarters to take supper elsewhere, she would convince him to "save his money and keep an old woman company instead", as she called it, and when she occasionally commented on him turning into his quarters late, it was with motherly concern, not with a landlady's strictness. 

When they conversed, she spoke often of her children and her father, but never of her late husband. Apart from the son who had passed, she had two daughters, both married off. One had children of her own, but she lived too far for Madame Deschamps to visit with her grandchildren frequently. She fretted about this often, but said she did not wish to leave one daughter for the other, and thus, she stayed were she'd always lived. Grantaire listened to all this, made the appropriate comments and entertained her with his witty remarks, but never told her much of substance. If she had noticed, she did not comment, and did not press for details of his life, but merely seemed happy to have a younger person who would listen to her and spend a few of his evenings in her company. Grantaire, who rarely saw his mother, and who was only used to the companionship of other young men, in turn found her presence comforting. Thus was their relationship an example of symbiosis. 

Where Grantaire could find it in him to be polite and appropriate with an older lady like Madame Deschamps, he had no such scruples where Les Amis de l'ABC were concerned. 

“I hear you all speak among yourselves and be mostly agreed, apart from the particulars, but gentlemen, I must challenge you!” He stood up and exclaimed during a discussion of the death penalty. 

“I hear you all say “the death penalty must be reserved for the vilest of cases” or “the death penalty must be done away with all together” but gentlemen, consider this: death is a much lighter price to pay than decades of imprisonment! Death must be such a beautiful thing, after all. I should rather return to its embrace than be locked up! Do you not see the hollow eyes of those who return? Do you not pity them? Must you not grant them the freedom of eternity rather than the incarceration of years?”

“It is true that imprisonment imperils the soul, Grantaire, we are many who have taken notice of this,” Combeferre answered him. “But the answer lies in changing the imprisonment, not in letting the law execute whoever it may find it convenient to get rid of.”

“And why? Why is that? Is it not easier to be Achilles than Sisyphus? Is it not better to have peace than a vain hope?”

“The hope is not in vain,” Enjolras intercepted. “Men rebuild themselves after prison, it is a known phenomenon. And it should be easier to do so if we rid the prisons of hard labour and the convicts of their letters, but impossible if we let them die instead.”

“Yet you would also rid the cause of martyrs, would you not? How would you rally, if not behind the unjustly killed?”

“That is hardly the main concern,” Enjolras responded, clearly getting irritated with him. 

“Ah, perhaps not. But a concern nonetheless, isn’t it?” 

“Hardly,” Enjolras answered. “The cause attracts us because it is righteous, not because it is opposed.”

“Do you believe Paris will rise for righteousness? You do not know her very well then. Paris needs blood and excitement to wake from her stupor, not mere righteousness. She will go to an execution and cheer or jeer, but sleep through an injustice. You mean to rally her, but she only wakes for blood.”

“She has awakened for injustice before,” Enjolras said. “And even were it as you say, we are those who are ready to give her the blood necessary. The death penalty has nothing to do with it.”

“The blood of a mob is not the same as the blood of an execution. One unjust death makes a saint, a hundred makes a misfortune.”

“Does that not make the hundreds of executions misfortunes then? A man is not declared a saint just because he was executed. And a “mob”, as you say, carries the potential to change the order of the world without needing any of the qualities necessary for sainthood.”

Grantaire was about to respond  — with what, he didn’t know  — but Enjolras started speaking again before he could.

“But we stray from the topic at hand. We are talking of the death penalty. Courfeyrac, you wanted to say…?”

And then Courfeyrac started talking and went on and on about the evils of capital punishment and before Grantaire could intercept again, Joly had distracted him with gossip from Café Alexandre, as well as a little from his mistress. Initially, when he started talking of his mistress, Grantaire had thought him to still be talking about a Café Alexandre patron, for he employed female language for most of them, but it soon became clear what he truly meant. This mistress was apparently a grisette called Musichetta, and Joly was beyond infatuated with her. Grantaire asked about her on accident and was met with a whole speech on the matter of her virtues. 

It would not be the last time he heard Joly speak of Musichetta, and he did not do so only when he meant to turn Grantaire’s attention away from others. Where the deep affection between Joly and Lesgle, or Jeanine and Bossuet, was steady and solid to the point where it sometimes felt like the one constant in Grantaire’s life, this new love was imbued with all the qualities one can expect from such a love  — it was wild and loud and waited for no-one. 

One day when he was walking with Bossuet, his friend took his arm and said:

“See, over there walks our Joly with his mamselle!” 

And indeed, there was Joly, walking next to a petite grisette, both of them laughing. 

“Have you yet met?” 

“We have, but only briefly.”

“Well, then…” Grantaire said and walked straight towards the pair. 

“Wait, Grantaire…!” Bossuet exclaimed and hurried after him in an attempted to make him stop his trajectory. 

“Jolllly, my friend!” Grantaire yelled towards them.

Joly looked up and Bossuet hid his face in Grantaire’s shoulder. 

“I hate you,” he muttered as Grantaire patted his back in mock sympathy. 

"My friends!" Joly exclaimed. "How nice to see you. Where are you headed this afternoon?" 

"To drink and dreams," said Grantaire, while Bossuet, with rather less flourish, said:

"To The Corinth."

"Goodday, Monsieur Lesgle," Musichetta said and smiled towards Bossuet, before turning to Grantaire, then to Joly. "Jean, you haven't introduced your other friend to me." 

"Oh, of course… Musichetta, this is my dear friend Grantaire and Grantaire, this is Musichetta." 

"Delighted, of course," said Grantaire. "It is grand to finally have a face for the name. Now where does young love lead you today?" 

"To the Odéon Theatre.”

"Oh, marvelous! Bossuet, weren't you just saying how you miss the theatre?" 

"What — " 

"Oh, don't turn shy on me now! He has been engaging me in tireless discourse on the subject of going to see just such a performance." 

Musichetta giggled, Joly stared. Bossuet did so little that Grantaire believed him to be extending a great deal of effort to keep it so. 

"How fortunate that we should come upon you just when you had the very same plans! The fates saw us each, and put us in each other's ways."

The lovers spoke almost simultaneously. 

"Oh there's really no need," said Bossuet. 

"Would you like to join us, Lesgle?" said Joly.

A moment went on where the bustle of the street was all they heard. 

"Why don't you go with us, Monsieur Lesgle?" asked Musichetta. "I would so love to know Jean's dearest friend better. You can join us as well, of course, Monsieur Grantaire." 

"I thank you for the offer, mademoiselle, but I am required elsewhere. Take good care of these two for me, will you?" 

Musichetta laughed again. 

"I shall make a valiant attempt." 

And thus Grantaire left them and thus did he, a few weeks later, learn that the mademoiselle and the two gentlemen now found themselves in exactly the type of arrangement Joly had hoped for. 

  
  


On a day after the _ ménage à trois  _ between his closest friends and Musichetta had begun, Grantaire found himself the only one of them at the Les Amis de l’ABC meeting. Neither of the men had informed Grantaire they would be absent, so when Enjolras asked after their presence and Combeferre explained to him that neither would be there today, Grantaire felt rather frustrated. They were far from the only men present he liked, of course, and he was quite happy to chat with Prouvaire about classical gods, but he could not deny that it angered him, to be less informed of their comings and goings than Combeferre. Did he not know them better? Was he not their closest friend? But of course, Joly would have mentioned it to Combeferre at the medical school and that was why he knew it. 

That was not enough, of course. Grantaire compared Roman and Greek gods with Prouvaire for a while, but as he spoke, he got more and more agitated. 

“And the Greeks revered the poet, while the Romans revered the warrior. The madness of Ares becomes the greatness of Mars, Parthenon honours Athena while the Pantheon honours all, clever Odysseus is sent to hell by Dante! And when we’ve said hell, what of Hades? The Greeks hated death, that is, Pluto, but the Romans welcomed Dis Pater. But poor Persephone! Married off to a stranger and abducted. She rarely saw her mother. To be torn from her mother is great pain for a woman. Why, I need only think of my sister, Elise! 16 summers old, her fate might soon be the same. Indeed, nothing is as ugly as a marriage. To be bound to another person, that is a terrible faith. Even love marriages are ugly, for you promise each other forever, but no-one can give it. Let Abélard be castrated and Héloïse become a nun, it is no trouble with me. Love hurts as badly as does the bullet. What a terrible fate is love!”

“You’re being unjust, Grantaire!” Prouvaire exclaimed. “Love is what compels all, it is what we live for. What is a human without love? A corpse. I might consent to your distaste for wedlock, it can indeed consist of chains, but love! Love is not chains, it is two hands clasped together  — and when love exists in a marriage, those hands can never be torn apart.”

Grantaire was about to argue further, but before he could, a hand fell on his shoulder. He looked over his shoulder and saw it was Bahorel.

“Grantaire, if I may speak to you?” 

“Of course, my friend! Speak.”

Bahorel nodded his head towards the side of the room and Grantaire got up to follow him away from the main group. 

“I have already informed Joly and Lesgle, so you need not concern yourself over that. I had hoped you’d be at our breakfast the other day so I may have informed you all at once, but alas, it was not to be.”

“All this talk is bad for my nerves: say what you need to.”

Bahorel sighed. 

“First, I feel I must justify myself. Well, you see, this is how it is: after the meeting where Bossuet’s pamphlet was read  —  the one most did not know he had penned  —  Enjolras put several questions to me. He had noticed that Lesgle and yourself were quiet and anxious that day, and he recognised the way Lesgle writes, for he has apparently helped him edit an earlier pamphlet. And so, well  —  I told him.”

Grantaire clenched his fists. His heart was beating fast. 

“You told him what, exactly?” he asked darkly. 

Bahorel rubbed at his neck and looked away before he spoke again. 

“I confirmed his suspicion that Bossuet was the man behind that pamphlet and I explained about my experience of the day.” 

“YOU DID WHAT?!” Grantaire yelled. 

Several men turned around to look at them as Bahorel shushed him. One of them was Enjolras; his eyes met Grantaire’s for a second, but Grantaire turned his eyes down immediately as if burned by Enjolras’. 

“Hush, please,” Bahorel pleaded. “Will we have to go somewhere else?” 

Grantaire took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall. 

“I’ll behave,” he said through gritted teeth. 

“You should know Enjolras expressed his sympathies — “ Bahorel began. 

“And what, you think that justifies it?” Grantaire snarled, though he kept his voice barely above a whisper. “You had no rights to tell others what you should not have known in the first place.”

“”Should not have known?”” Bahorel repeated. “I helped you, didn’t I?”

Grantaire laughed, but it was an ugly, mocking laugh  —  a laugh Grantaire hated. 

“If you truly believe I would have confided in you for any other reason than to save Lesgle from prison, you are severely deluded.”

“Joly and Lesgle were shocked, of course, but they did not react nearly this badly. Perhaps — "

Bahorel ceased speaking as Grantaire pushed himself off the wall and into his personal space. Their faces were mere inches apart as Grantaire venomously hissed: 

“Go back to the nice buggers, then!” 

As suddenly as he had invaded it, Grantaire left Bahorel’s personal space, instead walking off and leaving the Musain behind altogether. 

  
  


After his encounter with Bahorel, Grantaire avoided both him and meetings for a while. He did not go to the Café Musain, nor to the Corinth wine-shop, which his friends had also entered into a habit of patronising, instead he played billiards at Café Voltaire, drank his days away in the Latin Quarter or, when he could not stomach the taste of wine or absinthe, he threw himself into boxing or single-stick, preferring the easy camaraderie of a match to the deep friendship of a discussion.

Joly and Bossuet were the first to take notice  — they could guess the reason, after all. They tried to impress upon him that they, too, had not been pleased, but that Bahorel had ultimately done what he must  — had done the only thing he could do, if he did not want all four of them to end up in a web of lies that would be almost impossible to disentangle.

Grantaire didn’t care. 

He avoided Joly and Bossuet, too, for a week after that, going not once to the Café Alexandre, but instead met men in the Champs-Élysées or other public haunts, at once wary and uncaring of the risks of the endeavour. 

When he one morning, after a day of drinking and a night at the docks, was vomiting into a street gutter in the Latin Quarter, his hair wet with sweat and grease, Courfeyrac came upon him. 

“Grantaire? I thought that was you!” He exclaimed cheerily

Grantaire just looked at him, not even bothering to stand up from his hunched position. Then he vomited again. 

"Oh dear," he heard Courfeyrac say to himself. 

"Here, take my coat, you look freezing," he told Grantaire, and put his coat over his shoulders before Grantaire had time to protest.

Courfeyrac also somehow produced a ribbon, and soon his fingers were running through Grantaire’s hair and he had tied his hair back with it, so it was no longer in his face nor in danger of his bile. 

"There's a public pump on the next street," he said, and began leading Grantaire towards it, again without allowing him time to protest. 

Once they arrived at the pump, Grantaire rinsed his fingers before handing Courfeyrac his coat back as he soaked the bile off of he front of his shirt and out of his beard. Once satisfied, he drank of the water, then splash some water over his face and dried it off with his shirt sleeve. Upon standing up again, he was shaking slightly from the cold and Courfeyrac insistently handed him back the coat. 

“Thanks,” Grantaire mumbled as he put it on. 

"How did you even lose your coat? Were you set upon?" 

Grantaire thought briefly on his frantic run from the possible gendarme, who had interrupted his amorous encounter on the Quai du Marché-Neuf.

"Yes,” he told Courfeyrac. “I fought them off, but had no time to rescue my coat from them." 

"Shit… Well, it is fortunate you know how to defend yourself. I daren’t think on what might have happened otherwise. Are you injured? Should we go to Combeferre?” 

“No, no, nothing of the sort! I lost them hours ago and I am quite alright. Well, apart from the usual punishments of overindulgence, of course, for which I do not imagine even Combeferre knows a cure  — if he does, he has failed to divulge the secret to Joly!”

Courfeyrac hummed as he gave Grantaire a look over. 

“Shall we go to the Musain? It is not far from here.”

“Neither are my quarters.”

“You look as if you could use some sustenance? My treat. I have something to discuss with you, regardless.”

Had Grantaire been more awake, or less afflicted by crapula, he might have expended some time on wondering what Courfeyrac could have to discuss with him, maybe even refused him based on suspicions of the topic, but as it was, he shrugged and strode off towards the Musain.

“My landlady shall be annoyed with me for missing breakfast,” he said.

“Oh, it is early yet,” Courfeyrac said with a dismissive hand gesture and a disarming smile. 

Grantaire looked up to judge the sun’s position in the sky, but quickly gave up the endeavour when a sharp twinge of pain shot through his head at the brightness. Instead he set about retying the rather insecure tail Courfeyrac had tied his hair back in. 

"Why do you have a ribbon?" He pondered out loud. 

Courfeyrac's lips slowly spread in a self-satisfied smirk

"Well, you are not the only one to have had a night of revelry, Grantaire," he said with a wink. 

Grantaire laughed. 

“Will the lady not miss her ribbon, don’t you think?” 

“She might very well, but I’m afraid I only noticed I had it when I no longer had any idea where I might find her.” 

“A night of revelry indeed  —  and on your own?”

“Careful, Capital-R, I might get the idea to ask you the same thing.”

They both laughed as they entered the Musain. A tired-looking waitress, whom Grantaire thought might be called Odile or Odette, saw them and, upon having looked them up and down, her face settled into an expression that was midway between exasperation and amusement. 

“Bread, jam and coffee?” She suggested, a vaguely Polish tint to her accent. 

“Yes, thank you, dear Odilia, it is as if you read my mind!” Courfeyrac cheerily told her with a winning smile that had her flustered as she left them. 

They sat down, and once they had, Courfeyrac wasted no time getting to his point:

"So I thought you might like to know that Enjolras feels terrible."

"Enjolras? Why?" 

"He is terribly sorry to have come between Bahorel and yourself."

In the short pause for breath Courfeyrac took, Grantaire managed to imagine Bahorel revealing him once more in a dozen or so different ways. Even as Courfeyrac kept speaking while Odilia sat down two cups for them, his heart kept raising. 

"Of course, neither of them would tell me the whole story, but that seems to be the gist of it, does it not? Enjolras asked Bahorel to relate something to you, and you took offense? Whatever the case, they are both quite sorry to have vexed you so. And if you'll allow me to be blunt, you don't look overjoyed, either."

Grantaire shot Courfeyrac a tired look over the rim of his cup. 

“I’m perfectly alright,” he said, before taking a sip and grimacing at the interaction between the coffee and his still gurgling stomach. 

“Of course, I’m sure you ordinarily find yourself in such a state on a Monday morning,” Courfeyrac said.

Grantaire laughed loudly. 

“You mean to be ironical, but you are merely accurate.”

“Very well, that is a whole other concern, but let us put it aside for now: I wanted to impress upon you that whatever conflict you find yourself in with Enjolras and Bahorel, it has them both quite upset and I do not like to see my friends upset. If you believe them to be unaffected, you are incorrect.” 

“I do not see why Enjolras should be upset; he has done nothing to me and I am not upset with him.”

“But you  _ are  _ upset with Bahorel.”

Grantaire didn’t answer. His silence was answer enough.

Courfeyrac sighed. 

“What could he possibly have done to offend you so? I have never known you to take offense easily. Enjolras shoots down your arguments, but you are not upset. Lesgle calls you stupid, and you shoot back in kind. Bahorel says that you are homely, and you do not protest, but laugh at his jest and call him a dandy. What is so different this time? Is it because the message came from Enjolras? If so, should it not be with Enjolras your anger lay? How come–"

“He broke my trust!" Grantaire exclaimed, so loudly that the two only other patrons at the café turned to look at them.

Grantaire continued in a lower volume once they'd looked away once more:

"Surely you must realise by now that I am not a trusting man. It is my experience that man is a selfish creature and that even friendship cannot change this truth. I do not like to put my trust in something so selfish as man and so when I do trust, and that trust is betrayed, I do not take it lightly."

Courfeyrac leaned back in his chair and considered Grantaire for a few moments.

"I do not share your distrust of mankind, but I understand why a betrayal may leave you this upset. And I understand now why no-one would tell me about what this disagreement revolved, for to do so would be to betray you once more, no?" 

Grantaire shrugged dismissively. He was regretting letting Courfeyrac take him to the Musain. 

"In a case such as this, I will not ask you to forgive and move on, but I would ask you to consider speaking to Bahorel – and to stop avoiding your other friends. We miss you at the meetings, you know."

Grantaire scoffed. 

"I find that difficult to believe."

"Very well, perhaps less at the meetings and more at the revelry after them," Courfeyrac said with a wink. "Though in truth, I personally  _ do _ miss having our own private contrarian  —  it is healthy for Enjolras to be met with an opposite now and again."

Grantaire did his very best not to consider that statement too much. 

"Did they ask you to involve yourself in this?" he asked Courfeyrac, who for all the world looked like the cat who got the cream when he answered:

"People never ask me to involve myself, I merely act as is in my nature."

“It is your nature to flatter a drunkard to no gain of your own?” Grantaire grumbled, as Odilia sat down their breakfast on the table.

“No, it is my nature to interfere when my friends fight,” Courfeyrac said after thanking Odilia with another smile.

“Forgive my bluntness, but are we friends?” 

“We are on tu terms, aren’t we? And we frequent the same places and have the same friends among us; of course we are! Not the closest of friends  —  I admit that we do not know each other overly well  —  but certainly close enough that seeing you fall out with other friends distresses me greatly.” 

Grantaire hummed noncommittally as he spread jam on a slice of bread. 

“Well listen here, we have plans to meet at the Corinth tomorrow evening, but I happen to know that Bahorel will be otherwise occupied. He, Enjolras, Feuilly and I have been looking at ways to strengthen our ties with other groups and tomorrow he shall be on just such a mission. There can be no harm in showing up in that case, no?”

“I suppose not.” 

“Then it’s settled!” Courfeyrac said triumphantly. “You shall make your reappearance tomorrow.”

Grantaire made some vague, agreeing motion but then said:

“I don’t see how this achieves your goal.”

“I play the long game, Monsieur,” Courfeyrac said with a wink and took a bite of his bread. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Héloïse and Abélard were two scholars in the middle ages famous for having an affair while Abélard was tutoring Héloïse that ended in first a secret marriage, then Héloïse becoming a nun and Abélard being castrated by her uncle and his friends as punishment for his (perceived) slights against her. The story was a common point of reference at the time. 
> 
> About the places Grantaire cruises, here is a quote from a 1826 book ( _Biographie des commissaires de police et des officiers de paix de la ville de Paris_ ):
> 
> " _You can see these disgusting men move about Paris, at the Palais-Royal, in certain cafés, where an exquisite elegance almost always sets them apart... In the evening, at the setting of the sun, you will notice a good number on the Quai Saint-Nicolas, the Quai du Louvre and the Quai de l'Archevêché; in the Place du Marché-Neuf and the Place de la Sorbonne and along the Champs-Élysées; and everywhere you will see with what assurance and with what shamelessness they dare to make you the most filthy propositions._ "
> 
> I don't speak French and get this quote from Queer Sites, as I do many of my sources. Queer Sites also notes that Champs-Élysées referred to the parks along side the avenue (then _Avenue de Neuilly_ ) in the 18th and 19th century, not the avenue modern people associate it with. And of course anywhere near the docks has always been a popular cruising spot in any city that have them. 
> 
> [ Anyway Grantaire when Courf encounters him like](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLhFDYQHDQY)


	8. November 1827, Part 2

The meetings at the Corinth were not quite as formal as the ones at the Café Musain tended to be. They had no backroom to themselves here, and thus could not speak quite as freely, or at least were somewhat more reticent to wave about illegal pamphlets. The political and the social was often one and the same when in the presence of Les Amis de l’ABC, but the Musain lend itself more to the first and the Corinth more to the latter. In a way, where Bahorel was responsible for granting them the Musain, Grantaire was responsible for introducing them to the Corinth, for it was he who had first Joly and Bossuet here, and it was they who had introduced the rest of the group. 

As Grantaire crawled the stairs of the Corinth that day after his encounter with Courfeyrac, knowing that he was walking in where the man he admired most knew what he was, he couldn’t help but think back on that fateful night he’d spent here with Sabatier. He hadn’t thought on the man in ages, nor on his apprenticeship. It caused him pain and Grantaire did not like to think of things that caused him pain. He hadn’t used oils in over a year  —  not for painting, at least. He drew erotic commissions with charcoal or pencil, sometimes even got a brush out to render intertwined bodies with ink wash, but only because anti-physics kept asking him for them. Had they left him alone, he would have let his business die. He had not made any art of his own volition since he last saw his father. And he had not thought of Sabatier for more than the few seconds it ordinarily took him to bury the thought, either. Now it was impossible to bury it and he found himself gripped by the irrational fear that once he found his friends, Sabatier would be sat among them, laughing with them, and, when they all spotted Grantaire, their laughter would grow louder and louder still…

“Grantaire...?” 

Grantaire jumped away from the hand that had touched his shoulder. He turned around. It was only Combeferre.

“Are you alright?” Combeferre asked, his brows furrowed in concern. 

“Quite…” Grantaire squawked, then cleared his throat. “Yes, I’m quite alright, my friend. Where are we sat today?” 

Combeferre adjusted his glasses unnecessarily, still looking worried, but then he gestured towards a tabled with only one occupant apart from Combeferre’s coat: Enjolras. 

“We seem to be the only ones here as of yet,” he told Grantaire as they walked towards the table. 

As they approached, Enjolras was looking so intensely at Grantaire that he was forced to turn his face towards Combeferre and ask some inane question about his studies to which he didn’t hear the answer, so very aware of Enjolras’ gaze was he. The conversation between the three of them, once they were all seated, continued to be surface level and a bit awkward, for Enjolras said very little and Grantaire was so distracted by his discomfort that the only one in any state to carry the conversation was Combeferre and though he tried his very best, a conversation is best had with more than one participant. Only when Combeferre excused himself to answer the call of nature did things change.

“I’m sorry,” Enjolras said, immediately upon Combeferre’s departure. 

Now it was Grantaire’s turn to stare.

“For what?”

“For putting Bahorel in such an awkward position that it has embarrassed you and caused a rift between you and him. It was not my intention, but it was my doing and I implore you to not blame Bahorel for my actions.” 

“I don’t, for it was not your action to betray me,” Grantaire heard himself say. 

“It was, for I forced it out of him,” Enjolras argued. 

Grantaire sighed and resisted the temptation to roll his eye. 

“Why does it bother you so? I suppose you all did as you must, and that is all very fine. Helios cannot help but carry the sun, Sköll cannot help but chase it, none of us can be other than we are. You could not help but ask, Bahorel could not help but answer and I could not help being what I am. By which I don’t just mean those qualities in me that are so disgusting to men, but also that I cannot help but be disagreeable when I feel wronged. Let me be disagreeable, damn it!” 

Enjolras didn’t say anything for a while. His youthful features were drawn together in thought. Grantaire thought him about to reprimand him, but instead he said, very quietly: 

“It is not disgusting to me, Grantaire.” 

Grantaire crossed his arms and bit his lip, but forced himself to keep looking at Enjolras. 

“And you may well have been wronged, but I am happy to have been told, if only so I have the chance to reassure you of that fact.”

As he spoke, Enjolras reached out to rest a hand on Grantaire’s shoulder, and it stayed there till Combeferre returned a few moments later. 

  
  


The first time Grantaire came across Bahorel again after their disagreement was quite by accident. Grantaire was in a beerhall playing dominos with two strangers when he spotted Bahorel at another table. They were each busy with a match, so Grantaire quickly put it from his mind, focusing instead on his tiles, but once he had lost the match, he looked up to see Bahorel standing behind him

“May I join this match?” He asked, smiling oddly.

It took Grantaire a moment to realise the odd smile was an expression of awkwardness, having never seen such an expression on Bahorel’s features before. 

Grantaire made a welcoming gesture and Bahorel sat down at the table. The four of them played the next match in as easy companionship as the prior, though Grantaire and Bahorel acted more likely friendly strangers than companions. Once the match was over  —  another loss for Grantaire  — Bahorel coaxed him away from the dominos tables. 

Once they were situated at another table, a beer in each of their hands, Bahorel spoke: 

“I am sorry to have caused you pain, for what it’s worth.”

Grantaire looked up at him, meeting his earnest eyes, but quickly returned them to the far safer object of observation that was his beer. 

“You don’t have to…” He tried, but groaned in frustration instead. “I don’t… let’s not do this.”

Grantaire felt Bahorel’s eyes on him, but kept his firmly on his beer.

“I… well, it dawned on me that I made no apologies for going behind your back when I told you of what I had done and I thought you may believe me uncaring, careless. That I did not perceive the seriousness of the matter. I thought that might be why you were vexed.”

Grantaire moved uncomfortably in his chair and contrary to his natural state, he had to force the words out when he spoke:

“It might have been, to a small extent… still, it was not only that you revealed me, but who you revealed me to… but… I… let us leave it behind us, yes? I have calmed down, I have been soothed… I have finished causing problems, so let us forget it now.”

Once he was finished talking, Grantaire finally looked up at Bahorel and met his eyes. Bahorel had looked about to speak once more, to protest, perhaps, but he must have seen something in Grantaire’s expression, for once their eyes met his mouth closed and a few moments later he nodded. 

“Very well,” he said. 

An awkward silence settled itself between them and to chase it away, Grantaire emptied his beer and Bahorel followed his example. Soon enough, they had acquired more beer and were drinking merrily, laughing together as if their friendship had never been interrupted. Once they were quite a few beers in, Bahorel ducked his face close to Grantaire’s.

“Listen here, Grantaire, I have something to tell you,” he said conspiratorially. “I came across a most interesting sight earlier in the day. A relic, you might call it.”

“Oh, indeed? A relic of what?” Grantaire asked in a similar tone. 

Bahorel laughed with delight.

“Of greatness! Of principle! The republic, damn it!” 

“Oh, indeed? Am I the the right audience, do you think?”

“Actually, Grantaire, I think this time you might be just the man for the job!” Bahorel said with a hearty slap to Grantaire’s back.

“What job?”

“Well, you see, I and a few of my fellow students had most graciously been allowed entry to the private collection of a Monsieur du Thiel. Naturally, the intent was for us to to see his legal volumes, but my eyes soon caught on a far more entertaining sight: there, in the library of a royalist, was a map from the time of the republic! Now I said to myself: Jacques, this cannot be, you simply must make this right! Such a grand relic should not be relegated to such a fate! No, you must go get it, you must bring it to a more righteous place. And this, Grantaire, is where I think you come in.”

Bahorel ducked, somewhat sloppily, even closer to him and almost whispered:

“Do you want to help me steal that great map, Grantaire?” 

Grantaire, who had a higher tolerance than Bahorel, burst out laughing and for a short moment Bahorel looked almost offended. 

“Yes, yes, I’ll help you,” he said between laughs and snorts. “Where is the mansion of this Monsieur du Thiel?”

"In Le Marais." 

"Well, for what do we wait?" Grantaire exclaimed and stood up, slamming his palms into the table as he did. 

Bahorel grinned and stood up too. Soon they were dressed in overcoats and out the door. 

  
  


"On what floor did you say you saw the map?" Grantaire asked as he looked up at the dark building, wondering idly if he had the climbing ability to get in through a window. 

"Second," Bahorel said. 

Grantaire looked up to the second floor, 6 meters off the ground. 

"Hmm," he said eloquently, crossing his arms as he did so. 

"Indeed," Bahorel said. "I'm not sure we thought this through."

"If I may offer my help in that respect: I can assure you we did not think this through."

Bahorel just hummed in response, looking intensely at the building before them as if by doing so a passage directly to their desired location would open up. He then turned to the left and started walking around the building, Grantaire reluctantly following along. 

"There," he said and nodded towards a door. "The servants' entrance. I'll distract whoever opens the door for me so you can slip in unnoticed. Once inside, you'll open a window for me on the ground floor so I can join you."

"Won't I immediately be discovered?" 

"Not if you look as you go. It is a big house with few people, you should be able to avoid them."

"You have more faith in my abilities than I do, but very well. Collige, virgo, rosas…" 

"Dum flos novus et nova pubes," Bahorel finished for him, before winking at him and walking up to the servants' door. 

Grantaire mumbled a string of expletives then followed Bahorel for a bit, but stayed by a corner of the building while Bahorel walked on ahead. He knocked on the door with confidence, waited casually as if he was glad for the respite and, from the looks of things, talked to the maid who opened the door for him with great charm. Grantaire stood at the ready, the training he had accrued avoiding his father all those years kicking in, and once Bahorel had the maid a bit away from the door, facing the opposite direction of Grantaire’s corner, he strolled with fast, but measured, steps up to the door and  —  he could scarcely believe it!  — slipped down the stairs. 

He could hear the moment he entered that the hallway soon led up to the kitchen, where a few more servants were cooking supper for their master. Further up, though, a set of stairs led from the basement, where base arrogance required the servants to reside, to the ground floor. Grantaire walked briskly ahead, hoping to pass the kitchen so quickly that he would merely be thought another servant in a hurry, and soon enough he was up the stairs and found himself in an empty hallway. He let out a tense breath. So far, so good. How had Bahorel talked him into this again? 

After regaining his breath  — and his last grips on his sanity  — Grantaire snuck over to the nearest door to peer into the next room. Another windowless hallway. The next one, though, was an empty sitting room with a view of the street outside. Grantaire snuck over to the windows and peered outside for Bahorel. They hadn’t walked past this side of the building went surveying it; it had to be on the other side of the servant’s entrance. He couldn’t see Bahorel anywhere. Grantaire swore under his breath again. What should he do? Stay here and hope Bahorel came along before someone else did? Try to find a window that faced another side of the building? While he stood there and pondered it, having almost made up his mind to move somewhere else after waiting for so long, anxious that another might enter the room, Bahorel appeared. Grantaired waved wildly at him and once he was sure he had the other man’s attention, he started struggling to get the window open. 

“You took your time,” he said while helping Bahorel in. 

“I could hardly be on every side of the building simultaneously.”

“Nevermind it. Let us do what we came for”

Bahorel nodded and walked over to the door. He peered out, then waved Grantaire over and walked out. He looked around. 

“I believe I know where to go from here. Come, this way.”

“You truly got such a thorough tour of the house?”

“No, but I was paying attention on my way out.”

And true enough, they soon found themselves going up two sets of stairs and a few hallways and a near run-in with a maid later, they were in an enormous library and Bahorel was hurrying on towards a certain section of it. 

“Now where was it, where was it…” He mumbled to himself, Grantaire traipsing after him. “Right, here it is!”

And it was. There on the wall, just as Bahorel had described it, was a map of France in the time of the Republic. It was encased in a frame, and it was not the only relic in the section. Two Napoleonic maps hung next to it. 

“Know thine enemy, he said,” Bahorel commented drily. 

“You know his house rather well now,” Grantaire responded and Bahorel laughed. 

“Let us relieve it of its frame, it’ll be easier to transport that way.” 

Grantaire nodded and moved to remove the map from the wall. Bahorel hurried along with opening the back of the frame and soon he was extracting the map. 

“Careful! This is old paper,” Grantaire chastised, quite on reflex, and took the map from Bahorel. 

“I forget I am with an artist,” Bahorel teased. 

“It could be you forget it because it is not true.” 

“Oh? I hear you still do commission work on occasion?”

Grantaire shot Bahorel a look, but Bahorel was too preoccupied with the map to meet his eyes. 

“Not ones of any great artistic merit.” 

Before Bahorel could respond, they heard a third voice speak. 

“Excuse me — wait, who are you?! What are you doing here?!”

“Uh-oh,” Bahorel said and Grantaire shared the sentiment. 

An older man in servant’s garb was staring at them  — and at the map Grantaire was holding. 

For a long moment, none of them said anything. Grantaire was racking his brain for a good  — or bad  —  lie that might in any way help their situation. He was drawing a blank. 

“RUN!” Grantaire bellowed and sprinted past the servant, Bahorel at his heels. 

“Sorry, my good man, but it’s really for the best!” Bahorel yelled over his shoulder. “The French Revolution has reclaimed its relics, you’ll tell your employer so from me, won’t you?”

The servant didn’t get the chance to answer as they barrelled ahead. 

“My friends!” Bahorel exclaimed dramatically as he threw open the door to the Musain backroom. The effect was somewhat ruined by the fact there were only six people in there, but Bahorel was not so easily deterred. 

“My comrades, my brothers, I and Grantaire have performed a great feat today!” He spoke as he walked towards the center of the room. 

“Gather around, friends, and hear what we have achieved!” Grantaire added, needlessly  —  they already had the attention of everyone present. 

Bahorel stepped up on a chair and kept monologuing. 

“Yes, we have done it. We have snuck under the noses of the bourgeoisie and we have taken something dear to them  — something they had taken from us! And indeed dear to them only  _ because  _ it was take from us! This is not thievery, it is reclamation, it is the restoration of what was stolen to its rightful owners. In a just society, it is just to condemn the vigilante, but comrades, this is not a just society.”

“Tell us what you’ve done already!” Feuilly laughed.

“Grantaire, if you please,” Bahorel said and gestured towards Grantaire, who stepped up on a chair next to the one Bahorel was stood on and in a swift motion rolled out the map and spread it out carefully with his hands. 

A gasp went around the room, then everyone was talking at once. 

“Where did you — ”

“How in the world — ”

“I can’t believe you sons of — ”

“When is this map — ”

“This is extraordinary — ” 

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, all will be explained in due time,” Bahorel said. “What is first of utmost important, however, is where we display this magnificent piece?” 

Again several voices spoke at one, but Courfeyrac ran up to them and his voice carried about them all.

“Right here, on the wall!” Courfeyrac said eagerly and ran further to point to where he meant. “It shall overlook over meetings, just as the ideals it represents does!” 

“That is a noble suggestion and that is what we shall do! Grantaire?”

“Of course,” Grantaire said and brought the map over to Courfeyrac, who asked:

“Anyone recall where we keep the hammer and nails?” 

  
  


The map had been hanging on the wall for a little under a week the next time Grantaire made it to the Musain. More people were here this time, important things were discussed, though Grantaire did not know what the subjects nor what the battling viewpoints on them were. He experienced it all from quite far away, and suddenly he saw Prouvaire walk up to him. Somehow, Jehan was at once himself and Grantaire’s sister. She asked why he hadn’t written her. She kept asking and asking, shaking him where he lay with his head and arms on the table. Behind her, Joly and Bossuet had begun kissing, and then Elise was Musichetta, who turned away from him and joined them as they walked away, he unable to speak all the while. The Musain’s backroom had turned into the Café Alxandre and the trio was leaving him behind. No-one would have him. For a while, he was the only patron in the whole, dark café, but then he heard a lovers’ quarrel take place somewhere behind him. 

“Please, I didn't mean to — ” the first voice said.

“You didn’t,” the other interrupted. “I just can’t entertain this.”

“Please, can we not discuss this?” the first voice said, and to his shock, Grantaire realised it was Enjolras speaking. What was Enjolras doing at Café Alexandre?

“I feel like we have…” the second voice answered. “I’m sorry, but I must take my leave now.”

“You don’t have to — ”

“I think I do; I want everything to remain as it is.”

“And it shall!” Enjolras exclaimed. “Of course it shall. I would never…” 

Grantaire didn’t hear what Enjolras never would. The voices disappeared, the café disappeared. Grantaire was drifting in the ocean, now. Land was nowhere in sight, he was merely drifting around, meaninglessly. At first, the skies were clear, but then a storm came and with it, Grantaire was dragged underwater. All was dark around him. Nothing hurt. He was about to die, but he was at peace...

He felt a hand on his shoulder and rushed up. 

“It’s only I,” Enjolras said quietly. 

Grantaire looked around. They were the only two left in the room. When had he fallen asleep, exactly? He remembered something about censorship laws… someone had been talking of it quite hotly… Courfeyrac? Bahorel? No, no, it had been Courfeyrac. 

“Louison tells me we must leave soon,” Enjolras told him as he walked over to a small pile of pamphlets on the other side of the table and began carefully placing them in a bag. 

“How long have we been here…?”

“The meeting ended around an hour ago, I believe.”

“Shit... “ Grantaire said eloquently. 

He eyed Enjolras, who had merely hummed noncommittally and not looked up from the pamphlets he was still in the process of storing painstakingly carefully.

“You must think me quite useless, falling asleep when Patria has need of me. And for over an hour, no less.”

Enjolras made short eye contact with him.

“I think you looked exhausted when you arrived this afternoon, if you must know.” 

“Monsieur, I’m always exhausted. Life exhausts me. The men, the women, the children, the birds, the art and the kings; they all exhaust me. There is nothing in this world that does not exhaust me. Even coffee exhausts me.”

Enjolras hummed again and didn’t look up as he spoke.

“So your rendezvous with Joly and Lesgle last night has nothing to do with it?” 

“Oh, perhaps it does, at that, though I must insist on noting that I was exhausted beforehand.”

It was winter, after all. Grantaire always expected the usual tidal wave of melancholia every year, and yet every year, it took him by surprise. Enjolras ignored this part of their discussion, however, for when he finally looked up, what he asked was: 

“Bahorel says you go to cafés, the three of you?” 

Grantaire’s heart almost skipped a beat when Enjolras’ piercingly blue eyes met his muddy ones as he spoke in vagueness of things best left unspoken in ordinary company. 

“That is where we met,” Grantaire told him. 

Enjolras nodded, and his pale cheeks warmed. 

“Does this disturb you?” Grantaire asked him. 

“It does not,” Enjolras said firmly, yet there was still a crease in his brows. 

“Joly and Bossuet have each other, but you are alone,” he added, as if this was some sort of mystery.

“We are not all so lucky as Joly and Bossuet,” Grantaire told him.

“Yet it is Bossuet they say is unlucky.”

“He is lucky where it counts. He has Joly and Musichetta both, while most have none.”

Enjolras stopped for a moment. 

“He has both?” He repeated. 

“Perhaps I shouldn’t say so, but I thought as much was obvious, if one knew of his interests.”

Enjolras frowned for a bit, then began fiddling with the pamphlets again. 

“I had assumed it a ruse, as he has also moved out of Joly’s quarters. Or perhaps that it was not a ruse, but it was merely  _ Joly  _ who had them both… Are such things common?”

“What?  _ Ménage à trois _ ?” Grantaire shrugged. “I cannot say. They are not the first I’ve known to have such an arrangement, but I should also not call it common.”

“Well, what I meant was…” Enjolras paused, frowning again. “If one has certain feelings towards his own sex, is it common for them to appear alongside the expected feelings for the opposite, or do they supplant them?” 

“That’s quite the question, Enjolras. One for the philosophers, I should think.”

“It seems quite scientific to my mind. Have you not only to ask a number of men, then make a count of the answers?” 

Grantaire laughed and Enjolras looked up to meet his eyes. At their eye contact, Grantaire sobered.

“Your mistake is easy to spot, Aristotle. You expect that by merely asking the question, you shall know the answer. But I find it doubtful many would answer quite so simply as would be necessary to make a count of it. Do I have certain feelings towards my own sex? Yes, we both know as much. Do they appear alongside expected feelings for women, or do they supplant them? I cannot say, Enjolras. I have looked at women and found them pleasing to the eye, I have visited the beds of women and enjoyed my time in them, yet the thought of leaving my freedom behind to wed a woman scares me more than I can say. Tell me, are my feelings simultaneous or supplanted?”

“I take your point that I may be oversimplifying the matter, but you mistake my intention,” Enjolras said. “What I meant to ask was whether there exists men entirely celibate in the matters of women, but not so once one introduces their own sex into the equation.”

Grantaire leaned back in his chair and stretched a few sore muscles. 

“Your questions are complex and I am no oracle. Yet it is my experience that every type of person, one might imagine could exist, does, and in this case at least, I do believe I have met a few who flee entirely from intimacy with the fair sex.”

Enjolras nodded, thoughtfully, and finally put the last of his pamphlets into his bag. 

“Why do you ask such questions?” 

Enjolras looked over at him, bit his lip, then sat back down.

“I believe you can add another to your list of such men,” he said. 

Oh.

_ Oh. _

“It dawns on me that I am an intensely unintelligent man,” Grantaire said. 

“I did think I had made myself more obvious to you than it appears I had,” Enjolras agreed. 

“Have you known all this time? Whyever did you not just say so, after Bossuet’s pamphlet?” 

“I have not known, I have suspected. I tend to keep my suspicions to myself.”

“But this… this is why you asked Bahorel about us, is it not? 

Enjolras sighed. 

“Bahorel incurred your anger protecting my secret and I’m ashamed of that. I should have simply spoken to Lesgle on my own, or at least told Bahorel that he could reveal to you why I was curious in the first place. Yet, things are as they are.” 

“So Bahorel knows?” 

Enjolras nodded. 

“After the debate inspired by Bossuet’s pamphlet, Bahorel and I ended up discussing the subject further. I felt he was sympathetic, so shared my suspicions about the pamphlet’s author, even against my nature as it was, but to Bahorel’s credit, he did not tell me anything till I revealed why I was so interested in the matter.”

Grantaire nodded. A great many things made more sense now. Bahorel knew the importance of a secret  —  had to, with how many he was keeping for different groupings all over the city  —  and yet had given not only Grantaire’s, but Joly and Lesgle’s up so readily? No, it made more sense that he had done so only because he felt it was necessary to help a friend. And Grantaire had treated him horribly as thanks for that solidarity. What an ugly, petty little thing he was. 

“I feel I owe Bahorel an apology,” Grantaire said. 

“It was my fault, neither yours nor Bahorel’s. I have apologised to both of you, but I would like to extend my apologies again, now that you know for what they’re for.” 

“It is really not necessary, my friend. I would have done the same, and with far less grace than you.”

Enjolras snorted. 

“You paint far too pretty a picture of me. But come, I’m sure Louison will be quite vexed with us if we do not leave soon.”

Enjolras stood up and Grantaire reluctantly followed. He still felt groggy. 

They made their way out the café and Louison did indeed send them a strained smile on their way. Once they entered the street, they saw that it was covered in a thin layer of snow. Grantaire was a bit surprised at it, it seemed early yet for such a thing, but perhaps that was merely the Southerner in him. 

“Have you any experience?” Grantaire asked Enjolras as they walked. 

Enjolras sent him a quizzical look. 

“What I mean is, often revelations such as yours come upon you in the shape of a man you hold affection for. A tempter, if you will.”

“Did it for you?” 

Grantaire made a face.

“Yes, but let us not speak of him.”

“Why not? It is I who have been sharing, yet you who have more to share.”

“If he is not worth my time, he is most certainly not worth yours.”

Enjolras frowned at that, but did not press the subject further.

“Very well. I shall tell you of mine, even if you will not tell me of yours. He is one of our companions, and that is all I shall say.”

Grantaire glanced at him, but Enjolras’ gaze was far away. 

“And?”

Enjolras spread his hands in a vague, indecipherable gesture. 

“He is not as us,” he said.

_ Neither am I as you _ , Grantaire thought. 

“And you have sought no-one for solace?”

“The thought did not cross my mind.”

Of course it hadn't. Enjolras did not run into the arms of the first person who would have him, he did not find his peace between a pair of legs. 

“It was silly of me to bring it up,” Grantaire said. “You are not a creature of sin as I.”

He was about say more, but Enjolras spoke before he could.

“I do not think it is a sin,” he said. “The Assemblée nationale made it legal.”

Grantaire laughed. Of course that was what it came down to for him.

“Plenty of sins are legal, Enjolras.”

“Your Greeks...they did not think of it so.”

“They did not,” agreed Grantaire. “What does that help me? They are gone, as are their gods; I am at the mercy of ours alone.”

“As are we all,” Enjolras said quietly. “You no more than the rest of us.”

Grantaire laughed bitterly.

“Oh, sweet Antinous, you would not speak so if you knew me better.”

“We are all men and all men are equal.”

“But their actions are not,” Grantaire said. “Joly and Bossuet have love to excuse them. Jesus can be forgiven for loving John, Jonathan for loving David. I, however, have had only lust and a desire to forget this world I have been born into. That does not excuse me.”

Grantaire had said more than he meant to and could not bear to look at Enjolras. Instead, he turned his head down and, after a few steps in silence, stopped.

“I will take another way to my quarters. It is not right that I pollute your presence.”

He had only taken a single step when Enjolras grabbed his arm to stop him. 

“Grantaire,” he said, his voice hard as when he rallied. “You are wrong.”

Pathetically, Grantaire felt his eyes grow wet and for the first time in his life he found himself grateful for the darkness of a November evening. 

“Look at me.”

Even in the darkness, Grantaire could do nothing but obey.

“You are wrong. You are worth every bit as much as any other man. You have done no-one wrong. You have not killed, as I intend to do for Patria. You have not raped, you have not betrayed. Do you think the same of Bahorel, for being to many beds before his current mistress’? Do you think the same of her, who lets him bed her without marriage? Do you think the same of all the young women who must do so to live?” 

Grantaire wanted to argue. He wanted to tell Enjolras of how it was different. Melancholia compelled him, and he almost did, but he was looking into Enjolras’ sharp eyes, the light blue color of them piercing through both the darkness of the evening and the tar of his melancholia, and he couldn’t. 

“I do not,” Grantaire admitted. 

“Then do not think of yourself that way,” Enjolras said quietly, the hard quality gone from his voice; he sounded tired now. “Please, Adrien.”

Grantaire startled. Enjolras had never used his Christian name before; Grantaire had not thought he knew it. 

“My thoughts do not always obey me,” he said. “But I will try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Collige, virgo, rosas” is a phrase that was occasionally used in the same sense as “carpe diem” from a Latin poem that translates to:
> 
> _“Gather, girl, roses while the flower is fresh and fresh is youth,_  
>  _remembering that your own time is hurrying on.”_
> 
> Bahorel is quoting the rest of the first line at Grantaire. 
> 
> _“Jesus can be forgiven for loving John, Jonathan for loving David.”_
> 
> Both biblical references. The New Testament speaks of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” who has generally be assumed to be John the Evangelist. 
> 
> _“You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, and more than you who are here, assembled. I wish to speak in my own behalf and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had John, and I have George.”_ (James V and I about George Villiers, 1617). 
> 
> David and Jonathan are two figures from the Old Testament and and their relationship (however one interprets it) was used as a reference to homosexuality throughout history. 
> 
> _“Indeed I do remember to have heard that one man so loved another. Jonathan cherished David, Achilles loved Patroclus.”_ (Vita Edwardi Secundi, 1326, about King Edward II’s love for Piers Gaveston). 
> 
> I haven’t read the sources in question and I won’t claim to be an expert, but to my mind it seems like the main implications here is to avoid the association with “sodomy” specifically and argue that close _emotional_ bonds between men are not an issue. Older homophobia was _very_ centered on sex itself, particularly anal sex.
> 
> Anyway, happy little Christmas Eve, or second night of Hanukkah, or anything else any of you might be celebrating <3


	9. 19th-20th November, 1827

The crowd around them was impenetrable. Shouts and the sounds of violent clashes in the distance filled the air. Somewhere, a musket went off.

“Who do you think fired?” Grantaire asked, looking around for the tell-tale trail of smoke to determine where the shot had occurred. 

“There’s no way of knowing,” Feuilly said. “An Ultra or a gendarme seems more likely, but many have been hoarding guns.”

So it could have been a worker, too. 

“We’re no use here,” Enjolras said and tried to make his way through the bodies. 

Feuilly and Grantaire did their best to follow, but though Enjolras was the tallest of them, he was also the most slender and he slipped through the stream with a lot less trouble than his friends. The three of them had met with others of their friends at the Musain, but had been the last to leave — Feuilly and Enjolras because they were working and Grantaire because he had fallen asleep — and now they found themselves in the middle of a tumult.

When Grantaire had wondered out loud what this riot might be about, both other men had turned to him with incredulous looks. The _election_ , of course. Once reminded, Grantaire _did_ think he recalled hearing them talk of it, but he found it to be so intensely uninteresting that he had forgotten. 

“The comrades at de Glacière told me they thought this might happen,” Feuilly said once they were where the crowd was thinner. “Asked me to join with them. I would have, but I didn’t think…”

“None of us expected this,” Enjolras said, oddly calm in the middle of the chaos. 

Instead of answering, Feuilly ran ahead and crashed into another worker, loudly yelling: 

“WATCH OUT!” 

And another musket went off. 

Why had Grantaire fallen asleep? Why hadn’t he left earlier? Had he done so, he could have spent this wretched hour at his quarters, not running about an awakened Paris, waiting for her fill of blood. Blood that might very well come from him — or worse, from one of his friends. The nap had served to rid him of the last of effects of a nasty hangover, and so he was quite sober, for once. He couldn’t decide whether he was thankful or resentful of that fact. 

Ahead of them, Feuilly and the man he had saved were scrambling to their feet. Grantaire shot a look at Enjolras, and found his eyes full of pure admiration... 

“Thank you, brother,” the man Feuilly had saved said as they both scrambled up. 

“Do any of you have guns?” Enjolras yelled out at the nearest workers. 

Someone produced a pistol and waved it over his head. 

“This is all we have.” 

Feuilly swore under his breath. The street was littered with bodies. Most were alive yet, their groans and screams a testimony of the fact, but many were death. Almost all of them looked to be workers. This was the way of things: the Ultras had money and power on their side, the workers had nothing but each other. 

“Then for God’s sake, get out of here!” Enjolras commanded. “Another day will come, my friends — and soon. A day where we are prepared.”

The workers looked around at each other, a few went over to some of the bodies on the ground and started trying to drag them on their feet. Grantaire spotted another Ultra with a musket in the distance.

“ENJOLRAS!” 

The shot missed him.

“That goes for us as well,” Enjolras said, still oddly calm. “I have two pistols at home I plan to retrieve. I need one myself, of course. Do you want the other, Feuilly?” 

Feuilly nodded stiffly and they began walking. 

“And what of me?” Grantaire asked. 

“You may wait this out in my quarters if you wish.”

Grantaire bristled at the contrasting offers. 

“I am not a child.”

“I did not say you were,” Enjolras replied. “I only have the two guns.”

Although Grantaire would like nothing better than to wait out the tumult, to drink and sleep through it so fully that he would only wake once it was all over with, the insult of Enjolras’ offer stung him bitterly. So bitterly, in fact, that he only noticed four Ultras running towards them mere moments before he was punched in the face. 

His responding blow came almost immediately, though — Grantaire had boxed and fenced frequently during the last few months, and the movement came to him instinctively. His attacker had no such training, it seemed, for Grantaire soon had him subdued and turned to look how his friends were faring. Feuilly had been dragged to the ground by two men while Enjolras was too busy dealing with his own attacker to help. Grantaire ran forward, launching his elbow directly into the solar plexus of one of Feuilly’s attackers, then kicked him in the face when he crumbled together. The commotion caught the attention of Feuilly’s other attacker, who managed to get a blow in that made Grantaire’s ears ring. Ignoring the pain, Grantaire launched ahead and threw himself and the attacker to the ground. They rolled around in the dirt for a while before Grantaire managed to knock him out. Grantaire, bruised and bloody, took a fraction of a second to just breathe, but he heard Feuilly yelling for him.

Behind them Enjolras was still struggling with his attacker. They seemed about evenly matched until Grantaire grabbed the latter’s back and tore him off of Enjolras, then punch him in the face. 

Enjolras barely got a breathy “thanks” out before he was helping Feuilly up. Feuilly groaned in pain, but they couldn’t stop. They weren’t too far from Enjolras quarters now, at least. They hurried ahead. 

“Combeferre!” Enjolras yelled as they entered.

When no response was forthcoming, he swore under his breath. Grantaire couldn’t recall having heard him swear before. 

“He must have joined the fighting,” Enjolras said, mostly to himself. “That, or leaving his lecture hall has been rendered impossible.” 

Then he stopped and looked first at Feuilly then at Grantaire. A trail of blood was running down his forehead and he was starting to get a black eye. Grantaire tasted blood in his own mouth and knew he looked worse. 

Feuilly sat down at the nearest available chair, sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead.

“Damn it, we should have prepared for this.”

Enjolras regarded him for a moment. 

“Yes,” he just said. 

Grantaire understood too little of the whole affair to understand how anything like it could be prepared for, and for once, he let his ignorance keep him quiet. 

  
  


Combeferre had arrived at his and Enjolras’ quarters around an hour later, with Lesgle and a wounded Courfeyrac in tow. Joly, Bahorel and — God preserve them — Prouvaire were still fighting in Saint-Michel with others from Les Amis de l’ABC. A large group of them had decided to leave the Musain for a gambling hall and had instead left it for the tumult much earlier than Enjolras, Feuilly and Grantaire had. Combeferre and Joly had been at a lecture and had, just as Enjolras had suggested it, been delayed there. Once allowed to leave, a gamin named Gavroche had found them and given them a message from Bahorel to join them near the Panthéon. 

All this was hurriedly explained to them by Lesgle after he had helped Combeferre get Courfeyrac into the nearest bed, and Courfeyrac's strangled sounds of pain was a constant throughout the explanation. 

Combeferre appeared in the doorway, looking exhausted. 

"I have given him laudanum and bitters, now," he said. "But I need to get that bullet out — the wound will surely grow infected if we leave it."

He looked over the room, quickly taking the gathered in. 

"Grantaire," he said and Grantaire almost jumped in surprise. "Will you help me hold him down? Hopefully what I've given him will be enough, but I need him kept still if it isn't."

Grantaire blinked a few times, eyes wide, then nodded wordlessly. He did not understand why he was being entrusted this task, but he understood that Courfeyrac was wounded and needed his help. 

"Then we'll take our leave — unless….?" 

Combeferre walked up to Enjolras and embraced him tightly. 

"For freedom," he said quietly when they parted, and Enjolras nodded seriously. 

Grantaire in turn looked to Lesgle. He could not bear the thought of losing any of them, but Lesgle, who had opened his home to Grantaire, who had been his friend through it all…? There was nothing to be done for Enjolras and Feuilly besides, they lived and breathed the cause with everything they were. But Bossuet… maybe...

“Lesgle…"

He sighed in response and pulled Grantaire into an embrace.

“Worry not, this is not our first tumult and it will not be our last."

And that was that. Enjolras, Feuilly and Lesgle left them, leaving Grantaire dreading for their fate as well as the task that stood before him.

Beside him, Combeferre looked rather weary, too. One of the glasses in his spectacles was cracked, and his motion to adjust them on his face seemed more one out of habit than need.

"We should begin," he said.

Grantaire simply followed him to the bed where Courfeyrac lay passed out. He looked so small and vulnerable like that… His usually immaculate hair was a chaos of curls, his fashionable coat was ruined, and on his cheek, a nasty bruise was miscolouring his complexion. That was not the worst of it, however — the worst was his thigh. A makeshift tourniquet had been bound high on it to slow the bleeding, but below it a strip of cloth — probably from Lesgle's coat — was wrapped around it, the entire thing drenched in blood. Combeferre first removed the tourniquet, talking to himself about how he hoped Courfeyrac wouldn't lose the leg by his actions, then the bandage, revealing the bright red of the blood still flowing from Courfeyrac’s thigh. Combeferre got a pair of scissors from his medicine bag and cut open the fabric around the wound to allow for better access. 

“Grantaire, if you would hold down here,” he said, demonstrably putting one hand just above Courfeyrac’s knee and the other on his abdomen. Grantaire reluctant followed his instructions, feeling decidedly unprepared for what was to come. 

Combeferre looked at him through his ruined glasses. 

“If we're fortunate, this is just an unnecessary precaution.”

It was clear he meant for that to be reassuring, but Grantaire didn’t feel any better for it, particularly not when he saw Combferre dig a frightening-looking instrument out of his medicine bag. It seemed he didn’t need it for the first part, however, for he merely placed it on the bedside table, and then looked up at Grantaire. 

“Be at the ready,” he told him, and upon Grantaire’s nod, he dug a finger into the wound.

Courfeyrac started mumbling through his alcohol-induced stupor, but no heads or tails could be made of his sounds — not until they suddenly turned into an agonised yell, and it became clear that Grantaire’s presence was not merely a precaution. 

“I found the bullet,” Combeferre told him, but Grantaire got the sense he was talking more for his own sanity than to keep Grantaire informed. 

As Combeferre withdrew his hand, Courfeyrac went limp again, though he was still mumbling incomprehensibly into the cold room. The effect was chilling.

It seemed Grantaire was not the only one who thought so, for he heard Combeferre take a steadying breath.

“My hands are shaking…” he said. 

“It’s alright, Combeferre, anyone would be—”

“No, no, it’s not alright! I cannot… I must be still, to, to remove the bullet… I could… If my hands are not still, I might damage him further as I remove it… but it really must come out…”

Apart from some stumbling over his words, Combeferre’s tone was oddly calm, a great contrast to his shaking hands. 

“Well, take a few breaths, then! Have some of the laudanum yourself, if that’ll help! We can panic once it’s done,” Grantaire heard himself saying.

This whole situation was so horrible, he could scarcely remember how he got into it, why he was even here in the first place. But he was. And… and they had to help Courfeyrac. 

“You don’t understand, he could die of the bleeding,” Combeferre said, still trying to maintain a calm tone and succeeding better than what felt natural.

“That won’t be your fault! If you don’t remove the bullet, his leg will grow infected, you said so yourself! And you’re the only one who can remove that bullet, you’re his only hope — but by God, is that a better hope than none at all!”

Combeferre took a deep breath more, then settled into a determined look. He reached not for the laudanum, but for the bitter, and took a swig of it. Then he took yet another breath. 

“Alright,” he said. “Be at the ready.” 

Grantaire nodded and Combeferre picked up the odd instrument. His hands were still shaking somewhat, but it was clear he was doing his utmost to keep them steady. Then he stuck the instrument into the wound and Courfeyrac started to react again, throwing his head back and forth, shaking his legs under Grantaire’s firm grip. 

“Keep him still!” Combeferre commanded. 

“I am!” Grantaire protested, yet still tried to put more of his weight behind the hold. 

Grantaire had no idea how long the whole thing took, only that he felt increasingly nauseous as the proceedings went on. He lost track of what Combeferre was doing, if he was telling Grantaire of it, he did not notice it. The bullet came out at some point, to brief celebration, but then came the task of making sure Courfeyrac didn’t bleed out, and he really started screaming in earnest at that point. 

Through the fog that had descended over Grantaire’s capacities, he heard Combeferre mumble, over and over again like a prayer: “It’s alright, Marcel, it’s alright…” 

And then, blessedly, it was done. Grantaire immediately threw up, then slid down the wall next to his bile. Combeferre looked sheet white above him, but managed to keep the contents of his stomach. He had seen operations before, Grantaire reminded himself. 

“What do we do now?” Grantaire asked.

“Hope,” Combeferre said. 

  
  


Hours later, or at least what felt like it, Combeferre and Grantaire had managed to clean the worst of both blood and bile from the room. It was odd, Grantaire thought, how he would normally have left such tasks for far too long, but in this moment, where he had far worse to worry about, he could not wait to occupy himself with it. The waiting was indeed so terrible that for the first time ever, Grantaire saw the appeal of participating in a tumult: to be left behind, _wondering_ , was worse than to be beat alongside one’s friends — although best of all would perhaps have been to know nothing of it till it was all done.

Combeferre had been arguing with himself about whether Courfeyrac’s bandages needed changing already when Bahorel burst into the room, halfway carrying Enjolras. 

“Please tell me he hasn’t been shot too,” Grantaire said.

After blinking in confusion a few times, his eyes wild, Bahorel shook his head. 

Once they made it into the light, Grantaire saw that Enjolras was in fact conscious, if wounded. Bahorel had his own fair share of scraps, but seemed much more present than their brave leader. 

“Courfeyrac?” Bahorel asked as he helped Enjolras down into a chair. Combeferre immediately took the chair next to him and started inspecting Enjolras bruises. 

“Resting,” Combeferre said while he turned Enjolras head too look at one of his bruises. “We’re... hoping for the best.”

Enjolras and Bahorel took that non-committal answer in with awkward silence.

“The others?” Combeferre asked, now turning Enjolras’ head the other way. 

“Joly took Lesgle and Prouvaire to his quarters,” Bahorel said and sat down on the last available chair. 

Combeferre nodded, but stilled when Enjolras touched his arm. 

"Feuilly?" Enjolras asked weakly.

Combeferre looked to Bahorel.

"Unclear. He followed a few of the other workers, I am uncertain if they meant to lie low or to continue the battle elsewhere. I hear they have barricades near Val-de-Grâce."

And it was in that moment, a moment where all thought of physical love could not have been further from his mind, where the epiphany seemed so inappropriately frivolous as to be a sacrilege, that Grantaire realised whom Enjolras was in love with.

Enjolras, for his part, simply nodded tiredly, turned away from Combeferre and laid down his head on the table in front of him. 

“Don’t lie here, Jean!” Combeferre scolded. “I shall help you to bed. I think you have a concussion, is your sight disturbed?”

Enjolras only mumbled in response, which seemed to distress Combeferre further, and he carefully led Enjolras to his bed. A door closed behind them, leaving Grantaire and Bahorel in exhausted silence that neither of them saw fit to break. 

They stayed at Enjolras and Combeferre’s quarters, Grantaire and Bahorel, helping Combeferre keep an eye on his two patients. As it turned out, Enjolras indeed had a concussion, and he did little else but sleep and throw up the first night, while Courfeyrac was plagued by feverish nightmares and would call out incomprehensibly in the night. It was easier, once they got through that. When both men were stable, Bahorel forced Combeferre to take Enjolras’ bed and rest. Enjolras was still plagued with headaches and nausea, but accepted the move to the floor stoically. While Combeferre slept, Bahorel looked to Courfeyrac and Grantaire was left with Enjolras. 

“Grantaire, would you…” Enjolras said, before clasping his teeth together in pain. 

“Yes?” Grantaire said.

“Would you read to me?”

Grantaire was surprised at the request, but he wasn’t about to make Enjolras explain, not in that state. He nodded, went to the bookcase and managed to locate a Classical volume. He returned to Enjolras, sat down beside him and read:

_“Peer of gods he seemeth to me, the blissful_ _  
_ _Man who sits and gazes at thee before him,_ _  
_ _Close beside thee sits, and in silence hears thee_ _  
_ _Silverly speaking,_

 _Laughing love’s low laughter. Oh this, this only_ _  
_ _Stirs the troubled heart in my breast to tremble!_ _  
_ _For should I but see thee a little moment,_ _  
_ _Straight is my voice hushed;_

 _Yea, my tongue is broken, and through and through me_ _  
_ _’Neath the flesh impalpable fire runs tingling;_ _  
_ _Nothing see mine eyes, and a noise of roaring_ _  
_ _Waves in my ears sounds;_

 _Sweat runs down in rivers, a tremor seizes_ _  
_ _All my limbs, and paler than grass in autumn,_  
_Caught by pains of menacing death, I falter,_ _  
_ Lost in the love trance.”

Enjolras had closed his eyes, and seemed to almost have fallen asleep again, but was yet awake enough to ask: “Who is that?”

Grantaire almost smiled. 

“Prouvaire would be disappointed in you,” he teased. “Bahorel too, perhaps.”

“As well as you, I gather,” Enjolras said, his eyes still closed. “Now, who…?”

“Sappho,” Grantaire relented. 

Enjolras hummed in response. 

“Read one more.”

Grantaire did, but Enjolras had fallen asleep before he finished reading it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to admit right here and right now that most of that bullet removal procedure is based on a half-remembered scene from a historical fiction novel I last read a few years ago and general extrapolation from the instruments involved. I do recommend listening to the Sawbones episode called Gunshot Wounds if you’re interested in a overview of the history of them, though! 
> 
> The poem quoted is Sappho fragment 31, as translated by John Addington Symonds in 1883. I wanted a translation that was from about the canon period but wasn't too much of a rewriting like Lord Byron's or Tennyson's (the older translations I looked at can be found [ here ](http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/sappho.htm)). Also, Symonds wrote _A Problem in Greek Ethics_ about m/m relations in Ancient Greece so... seemed fitting, lol. 
> 
> Sappho had been translated into French many times at this point and was popular with the Romantics (particularly this poem). One assumes the book was Combeferre’s rather than Enjolras’. Maybe Jehan or Bahorel lended it to him, maybe he was just curious. 
> 
> (Enjolras is going to be SUCH a bad concussion patient, btw. He’ll keep wanting to do stuff and the thing about concussions is that most of the time the treatment is just “don’t move and don’t concentrate” and imagine Enjolras being given _that_ instruction. Not that I know if people were clear on that yet, but it seems self-evident enough that they might have been.)
> 
> Thanks to PilferingApples for beta-ing!


	10. Late 1827

Morning came on the 21st November 1827, and Courfeyrac had made it through another night. While Enjolras, Bahorel and Grantaire ate breakfast, Combeferre tended to him. When Combeferre reappeared, he informed them that Courfeyrac was now out of danger. Bahorel sighed in relief, but the sound was almost drowned out by the shrill screech of Enjolras’ chair ramming against the floor as he hurried out of it and to Courfeyrac. 

After Enjolras had left the room, Bahorel stood as well. 

“I’ll take my leave,” he told Combeferre. “There is much reconnaissance to do.” 

Combeferre nodded tiredly, and the two men shared a short embrace. 

“Capital-R?” Bahorel asked. 

Grantaire stood as well. 

“I’ll go to Joly’s, if you have no more need of me,” he said and Combeferre nodded again. 

“Send word when you can. I should like to know if anyone…” Combeferre cleared his throat. “I should like to know how they are.”

Grantaire nodded. 

“I’ll send word when I figure out where Feuilly ended up,” Bahorel added. 

They still hadn’t heard from him. That didn’t have to mean anything, of course. The fighting had only just stopped the night prior, and it was not easy to get messages through the city while such a wide-reaching tumult was taking place. Feuilly might be perfectly fine… 

“Ready?” Bahorel asked from the door. 

Grantaire blinked a few times and rose from his seat. He’d missed the last exchange between Bahorel and Combeferre. As he made his way towards the door, he was stopped by a hand on his arm. 

“I wanted to thank you before you leave,” Combeferre said. “I couldn’t have saved Courfeyrac on my own, and you handled things admirably. I can’t thank you enough.”

Grantaire’s eyes went wide and when he opened his mouth to respond, he only managed to splutter. He cleared his throat, and tried again.

“Well… he’s my friend, too.”

Something changed for Grantaire, after the election tumult. Though he remained the nonbeliever, the disruptor, he could no longer hold himself apart from Les Amis de l’ABC. He had, however little he wanted it, truly become one of them that night. Though he had perhaps passed that threshold before, it was only on that day that he came to know that he should forever be unable to remove himself from their sphere of influence. They were each a planet, orbiting the light of progress, while he was merely the moon, unable to escape from it’s eternal path around the Earth. 

Grantaire had made it to Joly’s, and found himself immediately embraced once Joly had opened the door for him. Bossuet and Prouvaire were playing backgammon at the dinner table, both bruised, and when they got up to greet him, it was clear Prouvaire was limping. Still, none of them were in any danger, and as he left almost an hour later, Grantaire hailed the first and best gamin and had him go to Enjolras and Combeferre’s quarters and tell them so.

Three days later, Grantaire ran into Bahorel at the Corinth. Grantaire found him in the middle of an information exchange with two Republicans Grantaire had never, to his knowledge, met before, and assumed members of another society. They ceased talking at Grantaire’s approach, but Bahorel merely waved him over and gave his comrades a reassuring nod and they resumed their conversation. It was about the election tumult, of course, but more importantly, it was about what they had learned for it, and how that knowledge might be employed in the future. As they ended their conversation, Bahorel slipped them a piece of paper. It might be an address — of a gun stash, perhaps? Or maybe a code phrase of some sort? Grantaire decided it was better he didn’t know.

“Did you find Feuilly, then?” Grantaire asked once they were alone. 

“Yes! Yes, thankfully — he’s alright, if a bit bruised. When I found him, he had a black eye, but grinned as he told me he’d vexed a whole complement of gendarmes.” The memory had Bahorel grinning, too. “You needn’t worry yourself.” 

“That’s good, that’s a relief...”

Grantaired nodded a couple of times, taking a swig of his wine. It truly was a relief. A man who had attended Les Amis de l’ABC meetings on occasion had died in the tumult. Grantaire had barely known him, and what he felt could not quite be called mourning, but it was… difficult, certainly. His loss was chilling, not least in consort with how narrowly Courfeyrac had been saved. If Feuilly really had been lost, well… that would not have made things easier. Grantaire did not know Feuilly overly well, either, but he and Feuilly shared the bond of having fought side by side, if little else. Feuilly was a loyal sort of fellow, too. It had not taken long before Grantaire knew that though companionship might elude them, they would both look out for the other, if it came to it. And it had. 

It made sense, he supposed, that Enjolras’ gaze would fall on Feuilly. He was brave and relentless in his pursuit of the Republic, and a highly intelligent man to boot. He had taught himself all he knew, Grantaire could scarcely imagine it — Grantaire was sure that had it been he who had been born with no advantage in life, he would have been an even greater ignoramus than he had managed to become even with all his advantages.

“Enjolras told me,” Grantaire told Bahorel, breaking the long stretch of silence between them.

“What do you mean?”

“He explained your behavior for you, and why you could not offer up such explanation yourself. I apologise for doubting you so.”

Bahorel was quiet for a bit, a slight frown decorating his brow. 

“It’s alright,” he finally said. “In retrospect, I understand why you reacted the way you did. I’m glad Enjolras spoke to you; I always thought he ought to confide in at least one of you.” 

Grantaire smiled sardonically. 

“Odd, to choose me for it, no?” 

Bahorel was quiet again as he observed Grantaire with an unreadable expression. 

“Perhaps not, at that,” was all he said when he spoke. 

“Whatever do you mean?” 

Bahorel turned the unreadable expression on Grantaire again and Grantaire was beginning to find it rather annoying. Could Bahorel not simply say what he was thinking? 

“I do not see you as an odd choice. Joly and Lesgle, they are twin spirits — you cannot tell one without telling the other. Is it not easier, to confide in one than two?” Bahorel finally turned his gaze elsewhere. “Besides, you were the one who felt hurt by his actions; there was reason to tell you, more so than the others.”

Grantaire hummed sceptically, but let it go. Why should Bahorel be able to account for Enjolras’ odd choices? Grantaire did not particularly want to talk more of the tumult — in truth, he did not even want to think of it — but somehow Grantaire went from having Bahorel account for Enjolras to having Bahorel account for his own whereabouts during the tumult. It was still impossible to not speak of it, though, Grantaire suspected, they both dearly wished they could speak of something more frivolous.

It took two more days before Grantaire saw Feuilly himself. 

At the first assembly at the Café Musain post-tumult, Grantaire walked in to find Feuilly surrounded by a contingent of workers from de Glacière. Only one, perhaps two, looked familiar to Grantaire, the rest must be entirely new to the society. All of them looked to have been involved in the fighting.

“I see you’ve made new friends,” Grantaire said by way of greeting. “Keep you from getting shot, did they?”

“They did, at that,” Feuilly said. “Helped me avoid the gendarmes, too. It’s good to see you in one piece, Grantaire.”

“You too. We didn’t hear from you for a while there.”

“We thought it prudent to keep him out of sight while the gendarmes still remembered what he looks like,” one of the de Glacière workers said. “This lunatic managed to sneak up and pour water all over their gunpowder.”

He shook his head, but it was clearly in expression of awe more than anything else. 

Grantaire laughed. 

“You bastard.”

Feuilly smirked. 

“I do my best.”

In truth, Enjolras’ infatuation was not, Grantaire supposed, hard to account for. 

Slowly, late autumn turned to winter. The blood of Paris’ streets was washed away by watery snow while the wounds of all who had fought healed, all to make way for a new year. First came the time of Grantaire abandonment, of course. One by one, his friends left him behind. Feuilly never left for the winter, of course, but money was tighter than ever during the winter, and he and Grantaire were not close, besides. Prouvaire was the first to leave, mentioning quietly to Grantaire and Bahorel that his celebration began earlier than Christmas. Joly, who was adored by not only his parents, but seemingly every single aunt he was in possession of, left not long after, and so it went on. 

Grantaire had planned to once again send his mother a letter excusing himself from going home for Christmas, but before he could post it, he received one from her. His mother’s letter was short, but full to the brim with worry. News of the election tumult had reached the south, and she had written to ascertain whether he'd been harmed in the chaos. She couldn't imagine the truth, of course – that he had, however unwittingly, taken part in it. Rather than answer her with a new letter, he simply posted the letter he’d already written, which was dated a few days prior and made no mention of the tumult. He ought to answer her letter, as well, but he hadn’t the energy to spin a fiction for her and thus the letter excusing himself would have to do for now. 

He didn’t tell Bossuet any of this, a December evening at the Café Alexandre, but did make complaints about being left behind.

“You could go home as well, if you wished to,” Bossuet said, not unkindly.

“I don’t wish to,” Grantaire grumbled. 

“I miss them too, you know,” Bossuet said and gave the back of Grantaire’s hand a few pats. 

“You miss Jeanine,” Grantaire teased.

“Not just Jeanine,” Bossuet protested, but he couldn’t help but smile. “But yes, I miss her.” 

It had been a week since Joly left. Bossuet, with only the short trip to Meaux before him, was planning to leave in a few days time. 

“Your grisette — I assume she does not overwinter elsewhere?”

“Use her name, Grantaire,” Bossuet admonished. “And yes, she’s still here. In fact, we had a very lovely evening last night.” 

Grantaire snorted. 

“Was one of your ancestors a sultan, perhaps?” 

Bossuet sent him an annoyed look.

“I should find it unlikely that the relatives of a sultan be enslaved, no?” 

Grantaire startled. Though Bossuet had talked of slavery in the abstract often enough, he had always stayed away from any personal comments. But… there it was. 

“I apologise, that’s not what I meant.”

“I know. You’re not the only one who struggles with this time of year, you know…” Bossuet sighed and rubbed his eyes. 

Grantaire didn’t know much of Bossuet’s relationship to his family for he had never spoken of it directly, but he did know Bossuet had spent some of his childhood in the Caribbean, and that he had only been legitimised when he was brought to France. It was not difficult to imagine what might have transpired, but still, Grantaire found himself just about to ask about it when Bossuet spoke again: 

“Let us see if we can’t get The Piano Queen to play for us and see if we can get some dancing going.”

They indeed did manage it, and did indeed dance a few rounds together till the idea of them as lovers suddenly struck them as the funniest thing in the world. Doubled over laughing, they decided to find new partners, and Grantaire danced a few rounds with Dame Cécile, an elegant travesti who numbered among the pianist’s close friends. As the dame moved on to greener pastures, Grantaire found himself dancing with an Emile, who made it abundantly clear he would only dance the male part. While Grantaire had no objection to dancing the female part, and indeed found such posturing silly — here, of all places! — he found it so off-putting that he only danced a single round with him. He drank enough that evening that he scarcely remembered his next partners, apart from to say that there had been at least two more, and only once he hit the fresh air outside did the fuzziness of his memory let up. 

“Not so fast, man!” He yelled at whoever was guiding him along, as the speed of their walk made him nauseous. 

Bossuet snorted.

“We’re strolling quite leisurely.”

“At your leisure, perhaps, oh eagle,” Grantaire slurred. “Where I captured the eagles and caged them by crowds...”

“What?” Bossuet laughed. 

“It’s — the poem. Did you not read it?” 

“You mistake me for Jehanne.”

Grantaire put his whole weight on Bossuet, causing him to stumble and almost fall over.

“Careful!”

Grantaire laughed at him, but did straighten himself to the best of his ability, causing Bossuet to shake his head as he chuckled a bit at his antics. They reached Grantaure’s quarters without further incident. 

  
  


Staying in Paris for the season was not entirely without its perks, as it turned out. Indeed, one day when he was sulking at the Café Alexandre, a foppish man with a few years on Grantaire came up to him and said:

“Briséis, yes?” 

“Yes?” He said, somewhat tersely. 

“Do you not remember me?” the man laughed. 

Grantaire looked up and took a closer look. Yes… yes, indeed. Though he had grown a moustache since, this was one of the men Grantaire had bedded early on in his time at the _Troie_ , and had many a pleasant conversation with after their rendezvous. He had not seen him — or at least not noticed him, given that his appearance had changed enough to give him pause — in a year, maybe two. Grantaire stuck his hand out.

“Forgive me. Gigi Ballerina, yes?”

Gigi laughed, but shook his hand enthusiastically.

“Just Gigi, now. These old legs do not carry me with the ease they used to.”

“However shall we distinguish you from Long Gigi, Gigi Songbird and Gigi _Ancien Régime_?”

“I happen to know that Gigi _Ancien Régime_ prefers Georgine. Still, if distinctions are to be made, in recent years I find myself in the company of a man of considerable fortune, and so there are those who call me Gigi de Pompadour.”

Grantaire snorted at that. 

“Yes, it’s not ideal,” Gigi agreed. “However, I did not approach you simply to discuss nicknames. You see, this man of mine, Comtois, is hosting a little celebration on Christmas Eve — a _réveillon_ of friends, if you will — and I wished to invite you, if indeed you will be in Paris for the occasion.”

“A celebration!” Grantaire exclaimed. “Yes, to celebrate, that is grand and perhaps all we can do while we’re here. Some are so preoccupied with eternal life that they forget, nay, refuse to enjoy this earthly existence. I understand these pious Stoicists in some sense, for every earthly pleasure has a backside of pain; the gambler falls into debt, the gluttonous eater is burdened with gout, the drunkard experiences crapula, the Lothario becomes riddled with disease and the legs of a dancer do not last. A Hedonist is a man attempting the impossible, yet his detractor is a hypocrite, for he pretends there is sense to be made of an earthly life, when there is none to be found. Yes, a Panathenaea of our own making sounds to me a grander thing than a _réveillon_. Yes, I will be there.”

“Marvelous!” Gigi said, entirely nonplussed by Grantaire’s rant. 

He gave Grantaire a time and an address, and permission to bring along someone he trusted enough for them all, then he winked and disappeared back into the crowd, most likely to recruit more guests. All the better, for Grantaire didn’t have anyone to bring along, not now that Bossuet had left, too. 

Or so he had thought. 

The next day, Grantaire was taking lunch at the Café Musain after a hearty bout of boxing. The last one of the year, in fact, for the organisers would be away. The last organised single-stick matches of the year were to take place in two days time, while both dancing and fencing had ceased weeks ago. Not only was Grantaire without company, he would soon be without past-times aside from those entirely dependent on vice. 

“Grantaire,” a familiar voice called and woke him from his dark thoughts. 

Enjolras was standing in front of his table, one hand on the back of the empty chair opposite Grantaire’s. Enjolras made a questioning motion and Grantaire nodded. Enjolras sat down as he said:

“I didn’t realise you were still in Paris.”

“I could say the same about you. Unlike me, you do not have a habit of overwintering.” 

“I did not realise you had such a habit. If I did, I would have sought you out once I realised I too would be staying.”

“And how do you find yourself in this situation?”

Enjolras made a face and looked down at his hands, the movement setting his golden curls in motion.

“Simply put, my parents and I don’t see eye to eye as of late.”

Grantaire laughed, earning him an annoyed look from Enjolras. 

“I don’t believe my parents and I have _ever_ seen eye to eye,” Grantaire explained. 

“Perhaps we haven’t, either… Perhaps it was merely easier to pretend in the past. Perhaps...” Enjolras trailed off and sighed. “It doesn’t matter. It is what it is.”

Grantaire nodded sympathetically.

“Have you eaten?” 

Enjolras shook his head and Grantaire called Gibelotte over so Enjolras could order. Once they were alone again, Enjolras asked: 

“So how do you usually pass the time, with no family celebration to attend?”

“Oh, I behave as godlessly as the season will allow,” Grantaire said and drank a good mouthful of wine as if to emphasise the point.

Enjolras smiled wryly. 

“Well, I didn’t exactly imagine you attending Midnight Mass.”

“Oh, Midnight Mass!” Grantaire exclaimed. “What a hypocritical affair! All of God’s children assemble at Church, some after a _réveillon_ of excess, some after starving yet another day! The former think themselves the foremost followers of Christ and should they happen to see the latter, they will sneer at them for not dressing as befits a celebration of God! Yet these unfortunate souls hear God’s words every Sunday, while their superiors often stay home. What a thing, the Midnight Mass is! Some go only to torture themselves with their sins, never believing themselves free of them regardless of how many times they’ve said: “Hail Mary!” I refuse to do so. I do not believe Christ saved me when He came to Earth. I do not understand Him, and if I must be a pagan and a sinner, I will be. I am honest, I shall not play pretense, the way the bourgeoisie do when they take with one hand and give back less with the other. They believe themselves good Samaritans, this horrid collection of Pharisees and temple merchants. Let us be honest, that is what I say! This year, I am attending a _réveillon_ , but I shall not go to Mass after. I wish to indulge, I do not pretend otherwise. I shall eat and be merry, for that I understand, but I shall not clad myself in false godliness after it is done. What a thing! Gluttony followed by prayer!” 

“You’re attending a _réveillon_?” Enjolras asked and Grantaire realised what he had said in the midst of his rant. 

Oh… oh no… 

“Indeed I am!” he heard himself say. “A most godless kind, as I said.”

Enjolras gave him a considering look and a smile slowly spread on his lips. 

“Indeed? Did the invitation come to you from a man at that café you like to frequent?”

Oh, God… 

“It did,” he admitted, and cursed himself for mentioning it.

“Well…” Enjolras adjusted his hair, then crossed his arms. “Does the invitation allow you to bring a companion?” 

“...It does,” Grantaire said reluctantly, while his mind was busy cursing him out for having such a big mouth.

“The thing is,” Enjolras said, looking inhumanly beautiful as ever. “I have nowhere to spend my Christmas Eve.”

And really, what chance did Grantaire stand?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> R’s drunken poem reference is to Hugo’s [ The Giant in Glee](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8775/8775-h/8775-h.htm#link2H_4_0017) from 1825.
> 
>  _Réveillon_ is a celebratory dinner and can either refer to Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, with it of course referring to Christmas Eve here. The idea of a queer community Christmas Eve is inspired by Hirschfeld's description of such dinners in _Berlin's Third Sex_ from 1904. I can't say if it's at all accurate that these would also have happened in Paris almost a century prior, but *shrugs* we're playing with the toys available to us. Hirschfeld introduces the practice thusly:
> 
> _"Gravest of all the gatherings attended by Berlin's uranians are those staged on Christmas Eve. It is on this more than any other day, this feast of familial joy, that the uranian bachelor feels t he burden of his solitary fate. Many would find the evening even sadder were it not for the wealthier homosexuals, one or the other of whom always plays host to waifs and strays."_
> 
> The practice of using female nicknames, often descriptive ones, is something I've seen sources on from around 1810 and up throgh the 19th and 20th century. The particular exchange about Gigi Ballerina/de Pompadour is inspired by this _Berlin's Third Sex_ passage, however:
> 
> _"These female names are often appended with differentiating additions; so for example there is a Twangy Juste, a Lardy Juste, a Hairpin Juste, a Frock Juste, Glove Juste and Flower Juste, a Lanky Anna, a Ballroom Anna and a Blue Plush Anna, a Doggy Lotte and a Squeaky Lotte, a Lacy Karoline and a Crash Caroline (his lively arm gestures ensure he smashes at least one glass of beer a night), a Butter Riecke, a Cheesy Klara, a Lousy Puala, a Harper Jule and a Death's Head Marie."_
> 
> (Side comment: I am Crash Caroline, Crash Caroline is me). 
> 
> Thanks to PilferingApples for beta-ing~


	11. Christmas 1827

It just so happened that the mansion of Monsieur Comtois was closer to Enjolras’ quarters than Grantaire’s, and thus Grantaire found himself knocking on Enjolras’ door in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, still not quite happy with how things had shaken out. He and Enjolras had spent some time together during the last week, which had kept Grantaire’s spirits much higher than they usually managed around this time, but it was one thing to discuss politics or literature and quite another to bring him to a den of infamy. Whatever his tender feelings for Feuilly, Enjolras was an innocent, and though Grantaire hardly expected anything salacious to happen at the party itself, he knew very well that the topics of conversation would still be shocking to the uninitiated. 

Enjolras opened the door. He was not wearing a cravat yet, and the top of his shirt lay open to reveal his defined collarbone, the skin of which was barely darker than the cloth meant to conceal it. Grantaire wondered, idly, if he burned instead of tanned in the summer. 

“Good afternoon, Grantaire,” Enjolras said as he closed one of the shirt buttons. “I didn’t expect you this early, or I would have made sure to be prepared.” 

“It is in my nature to never be punctual, dear Enjolras. I only arrived too early or too late and I never know which it is till I’ve arrived at my destination.”

Enjolras shook his head at him, but he was smiling. Soon enough, he was fully dressed for the winter weather and off they went. 

“Do you know this Monsieur Comtois very well, then?” Enjolras asked once they were down on the street. 

“I do not know him at all. It was our hostess who invited me, not he.” 

Enjolras looked consideringly at Grantaire for a moment. 

“And when you say hostess, you mean…” 

Grantaire lifted a teasing eyebrow at him. 

“I mean that Les Amis de l’ABC is a society for the betterment of children’s education.” 

“Ah,” Enjolras merely said, and they walked on in silence.

It was odd, really, how quiet Enjolras could be. He was a fierce speaker, a passionate fighter, a restless revolutionary who had lain dormant since 1794. But he was this, too; a quiet, contemplative man, who, if he was aware that the beauty of both his body and mind stunned those around him, did not act as if he were. 

“It’s beginning to snow,” Enjolras said and Grantaire looked up. Tiny snowflakes had begun to make their way down from the sky to join their muddy, grey brethren on the city streets.

“We should hurry, we don’t want to be out here when it starts to snow in earnest,” Enjolras said and Grantaire’s heart almost skipped a beat. 

Enjolras had taken his arm.

All Grantaire could hear was the sound of his own heart, and he almost stumbled trying to keep pace with Enjolras.

This was ridiculous. Grantaire frequently walked arm in arm with friends. Joly, Bossuet, Prouvaire, Bahorel, Courfeyrac… 

But none of them were Enjolras, and he could not pretend that Enjolras was any of them. 

“If,” Grantaire finally said. 

“What?” 

“ _ If _ it starts to snow in earnest. We don’t know that it will.” 

“Hmm. Nevertheless,” Enjolras said.

Grantaire was too flustered to argue further and they walked the rest of the way to Comtois’ mansion arm in arm. 

When they arrived, it was not their hosts who were the first to spot them, but The Piano Queen.

“Briséis! Welcome!" he exclaimed. "And who's this you bring? What a beauty! Is it Achilles, perhaps? I’m not sure I can quite forgive you for hiding him from us all this time!"

Besides him, Enjolras blushed more furiously than Grantaire had ever known him to do before.

"An Achilles of sorts, perhaps, but certainly not  _ my _ Achilles," Grantaire said.

"What a shame…" The Piano Queen said with a significant look at Enjolras.

Some odd, protective part of Grantaire was nearly awakened by that, but The Piano Queen quickly undermined his suggestive tone with a loud laugh, and Grantaire remembered that The Piano Queen was usually quite chaste, whatever his jokes might imply. It did occur to Grantaire, however briefly, that had The Piano Queen been talking with real intent, Grantaire had no real reason to object; Enjolras was not a young maiden he had sworn to chaperone.

"New blood, then?" he asked sympathetically. 

"I suppose so," Enjolras said evenly.

"Well, don’t worry yourself too much. Tonight, everyone will be on their best behaviour. Which reminds me, Briséis," The Piano Queen turned to Grantaire. "Some have dispensed with nicknames for the evening, we felt it was in the spirit of things. Indeed, I have let go of my title for now and stand before you as Paul."

The Piano Queen made a little bow as to emphasise his point. Grantaire laughed.

"Adrien," he said.

The Piano Queen looked him up and down.

"Rather less romantic that Briséis, isn't it?" 

"And Paul is romantic, is it? A Roman consul, to be sure, but small and humble. And are the Pauline Epistles not an unfortunate thing?" Grantaire turned to Enjolras. "You don't have to–"

"Jean," he said easily and The Piano Queen nodded encouragingly.

Before either of them could say anything more, Gigi Ballerina approached them. He gave them their welcome, introduced himself as Georges and bragged about all the decorations he had directed Comtois' servant to put up. He had a right to brag. All around them, lit candles upon beautiful candelabra bathed the hall in golden light. Garlands of holly, ivy and mistletoe hang from the ceiling and on every piece of furniture, while on every table stood at least one bucket of red and white flowers in painted porcelain vases. Atop a cabinet stood a row of porcelain figurines, most of them of dancing couples, and they, too, had been given a few flowers of their own. 

Beside him, Enjolras frowned. 

“The excesses of the rich,” he mumbled in an aside and Grantaire suppressed the urge to laugh at him.

While they waited for the last few guests to arrive, several men came up to greet Grantaire and get an introduction to Enjolras. He knew about half the guests by name – well, nickname – and had seen the remainder of them at different venues over the years. A few were hard to place, but he quickly came to realise that they were frequent wearers of dresses and cosmetics who had settled for a more somber attire for the occasion. A few, like Dame Cécile, had kept their dresses, but even they were not quite so outrageously clad as Grantaire had commonly seen them at the Café Alexandre.

When all had arrived, they numbered around four dozen attendees and a dozen servants. Gigi, who by now seemed a bit flustered, directed them all into the living room, where the table was decorated similarly to in the hall. Gigi held a little speech, thanking them all for coming and explaining that they had determined that the servants should get to celebrate, as well, and would not only be eating in the next room at the same time as the party ate, they would be eating the same dinner. This meant that the part would be handling themselves for the most part, but Gigi hoped they understood the reasoning. While Grantaire rolled his eyes at the performative benevolence, many clapped. Some with polite indifference – after all, most present where either bachelors or otherwise unaccustomed to servants – while others with rather more enthusiasm. Grantaire cast a glance at Enjolras and found that he was frowning once more. This time, however, he remained quiet. 

The dinner was marvelous, though not decadent. Grantaire ate better that evening than he had in years, and he knew that for some of those present, this meal surely must be the best one they had had in their lives. 

“Compliments to your cook, Monsieur Comtois!” Grantaire shouted towards the end of the table where Monsieur Comtois and Gigi were seated. Several voices joined in to agree and Monsieur Comtois gracefully accepted the compliments on behalf of his cook, assuring them all that he would bring the praise to the rightful recipient at first convenience. 

After dinner, the party returned to the hall and split into different groups. The Piano Queen and Dame Cécile invited Grantaire and Enjolras to play Whist with them and to Grantaire’s shock, Enjolras had accepted the offer. Grantaire had never seen Enjolras play at cards before, nor seen him engage in any other form of game or gamble, and indeed had wondered if Enjolras was even familiar with the rules of Whist. It quickly became clear that he was, for after they had drawn cards to determine the partnerships, he readily understood to sit down opposite from Dame Cécile, and it didn’t take long before the two of them were doing significantly better than Grantaire and The Piano Queen. 

“Briséis!” Someone yelled and Grantaire looked up. “Briséis, you’re an artist! Won’t you sketch me a portrait of my friend?”

A young man to whom Grantaire had previously sold a couple of erotic sketches had dragged another over to their table. Grantaire sighed. 

“I’m playing at cards, Albertine.”

“Afterwards, then!” Albertine insisted. “Please, dearest Briséis, be fair! Henri only has a few more weeks of leave from the Navy! You would be doing me a great kindness!”

This Henri was, like Albertine, scarcely more than a boy. He had delicate features on an oval face framed by dark hair and serious brows. His ears were pierced in the manner some sailors adopted. Grantaire could not remember having seen him before, but that made sense, he supposed, if the boy was in the navy. A midshipman or simply a common seaman? He might be dressed too well for the latter, but it was difficult to say. 

Grantaire rolled his eyes, though in truth he welcomed the excuse to retire from the Whist table after this match  — fortune was not on his side tonight.

“Alright, I shall sketch you a portrait, don’t pester me so,” Grantaire said, making a show of not looking up from his cards. 

Albertine rushed over and embraced his shoulders, almost causing Grantaire to drop his cards all over the floor. 

“Thank you!” Albertine yelled brightly, while Grantaire shouted: “Careful!”

Grantaire heard a soft sound from his left and realised it was Enjolras’ laughter. When Grantaire looked over at him, he was so shocked to find obvious affection in Enjolras’ eyes that he forgot it had been his turn. 

“You better get on with it, if you don’t want to leave the boys waiting,” Dame Cécile said and so Grantaire did. 

Soon enough, Enjolras and Dame Cécile had won the game, and Grantaire excused himself to go find paper and a drawing implement. He managed to hail their hostess and soon enough, he had been supplies with paper and a pencil fit for the task at hand. He then looked around for his model and saw both boys cheering on one of the players in a Vingt-Un game.

“Come along, if you want that portrait,” Grantaire said and the boys turned. 

Henri looked at Albertine, questioningly. 

“I don’t bite, my dear,” Grantaire said and started walking off to an empty set of chairs. 

When Grantaire sat down and looked up, he found that Henri  _ had  _ followed him, but still looked a bit lost.

“Sit down and keep your head still,” Grantaire told him and Henri wordlessly followed his orders. Grantaire quickly put down the general shapes of Henri’s face, his hand following a familiar pattern of movements. He got lost in the process for a bit, but once he had the outlines of what he needed, he decided an attempt to put the youth at ease was appropriate. 

“How long have you known each other, you and Albertine?” He asked and began working on the nose.

“Most of our lives, monsieur,” Henri said, his eyes darting nervously between Grantaire and what little of the portrait he could glimpse from his position. “Our fathers were lieutenants on the same ship, during the Emperor’s wars.” 

Grantaire hummed vaguely as an answer. The candles in the room cast odd shadows on Henri’s face from several angles, and that was sure to affect the portrait. Grantaire would have preferred daylight, or at least but a single light source.

“And you have followed your father’s footsteps, but Albertine not hers?” 

“Albertine wanted to go into the professions,” Henri said and Grantaire took notice of a wistful tone. Had Henri hoped that he and Albertine might have served together, as their fathers had done before them?

Their conversation ceased after that as Grantaire returned his full focus to the task at hand. Henri had wonderful, dark hair, gently curled in a manner Grantaire enjoyed rendering. His eyes were dark and deep-set which made him look thoughtful and Grantaire looked forward to filling in his brows to complete the expression, although he did not believe himself capable enough to do so fully. True enough, there was something dead to the way he had rendered Henri’s eyes, and his hair, too, as much as Grantaire had enjoyed the process, seemed to him far less playful than was true of the original. 

Grantaire had not noticed Enjolras walk up behind him when he spoke. 

“I had heard you were once an artist’s student,” Enjolras said quietly. “But I did not know you still practiced the craft.”

Grantaire startled, shot Enjolras a look over his shoulder and went back to his sketch. 

“It is not in me to stop,” he answered, almost as quietly. “Though I ought to.”

Though Henri was keeping his head still as he’d been instructed to, his eyes went back and forth between Grantaire and Enjolras, as if trying to guess their conversation. 

“Whyever do you believe you ought to?” Enjolras asked. This time, Grantaire didn’t look up from his work. 

“All I can craft is this  — half-finished pieces, half-formed ideas, impressions of what could be something great, if crafted by a more able hand…” Grantaire hesitated, but he’d never been able to curtail his mouth. “There is no point to keep creating what is doomed to always to be incomplete and incapable. I am deluding myself and cheating others of their francs… so yes, I ought to stop.”

God, he needed a drink. 

“It gladdens people, though. Your art. That boy, he will have a portrait of his friend because of you. And your erotica… “ Enjolras spread his hands in a vague gesture. “Well, it elevates what it is otherwise decreed must only exist in the filth, no?”

Grantaire stopped his sketching for a moment and looked properly at Enjolras.

“How do you know of my erotica?”

Enjolras shrugged.

“I asked if you frequently made pieces for these men, and was told of it.”

Grantaire bit his lip, then turned back  — first to Henri, then to the sketch. He’d made his nose too slim. He kept quiet as he worked on correcting it.

“I should like to see one of those pieces, one day,” Enjolras said. 

Grantaire pretended he was too preoccupied with his work to have heard him, and soon after, Enjolras left him to it. Thusly deprived of anything else to focus on, Grantaire soon finished the portrait. He took a moment to look it over. He wouldn’t go so far as to say that he was satisfied with the result, but it bore Henri’s likeness well enough, and that was all he’d been asked to provide. 

“You may get up and find your mistress now,” Grantaire told Henri. “It’s done.”

“May I see?” Henri asked and Grantaire walked over to him with the portrait. 

Henri’s eyes turned big. 

“I’ve only seen my face rendered by my sister’s hand before,” he told Grantaire. “You have captured my features much better.”

“Thank you,” Grantaire said dryly. 

It turned out Henri didn’t have to seek out Albertine, for he soon approached them. 

“Let me see, let me see!” He said excitedly, his tone not unlike a child opening a present.

“Oh it’s wonderful, Briséis!” He exclaimed. “Thank you ever so much, I shall look upon this whenever I miss Henri!” 

Albertine was beaming and Grantaire allowed himself to take some pleasure in his obvious delight at Grantaire’s creation.

“I am glad to have provided what you wanted, though you barely gave me a choice in the matter,” Grantaire said sullenly while drying the graphite on his hands off on his handkerchief. 

“Well, what do I owe you?” 

“What, for that?” Grantaire made a face. “Take it. Consider me moved by Mary, Christ and all the rest, if you please.”

Predictably, that proposition was met by overexcitement on Albertine’s part. He wrapped Grantaire in an embrace and showed him with thanks until Grantaire managed to get away from him.

“Yes, yes, run along now,” Grantaire said and shook his head. “You have more interesting pursuits to get to than bothering me, I’m sure.”

Albertine shared a look and a chuckle with Henri, then swooped in and gave Grantaire a peck on the cheek. 

“Thank you again. See you around, Briséis.”

“Yes, yes…” 

Once rid of his two young assailants, Grantaire went looking for Enjolras. The man may not be in need of neither protection nor chaperoning, but he was Grantaire’s guest, and so Grantaire felt it was his place to make sure he was getting on well. On his way, he noticed that several of the sitting places had been occupied by couples who were taking advantage of the company they were in to not care how visible their caresses and kisses were. 

Enjolras, however, was not engaged in anything so frivolous. While Dame Cecilé was still in his company, a larger group had gathered with them, and they were discussing the problems of their times, both social and political. As Grantaire approached, someone shouted: 

“Down with the Bourbons!” 

A rush of laughter went through the group. 

“We have the Charter this time, at least,” another said. 

“The Charter is not worth the paper it was swiftly scribbled upon,” Enjolras said disdainfully. “A concession, yes, but a symbolic one. Has Charles X not already limited the press? Does he not work tirelessly to undo what the revolution did?”

“Hey, give the man some credit: at least he hasn’t undone our legality!” A third man yelled to more scattered laughter. 

To Grantaire’s shock, it was a man he knew… intimately. He hadn’t seen him in a while, but there he was: Bernadette. The first man Grantaire had bedded. Grantaire was almost certain he hadn’t seen him at dinner. 

“Yes, long live the Bourbons,” Grantaire said as he approached. “Let us give thanks to Buonaparte, while we’re at it. Like Alexander, this general has truly done much for the infâmes of the world!”

This generated the desired laughter, but Enjolras answered it with rather more seriousness. 

“You know very well that the Napoleonic Code would never have refrained from mentioning sodomy had the Assemblée nationale not decriminalised it first, Adrien.”

At this, others who seemed rather more fond of The Emperor, objected and soon much of the group was engaged in a discussion about the vices and virtues of Bonapartism. Grantaire, growing increasingly bored with the subject, drifted away from the group to get something to drink. To his surprise, he was followed by Bernadette. 

“I had not pictured you a Jacobin, Briséis,” he said once he caught up to Grantaire by the wine table. 

Grantaire snorted and took a big drink of his wine glass. 

“I’m not. Did you not just hear me extol the virtues of The Emperor?”

“I also heard you call him Buonaparte. And your friend certainly is one, that much you can’t deny.”

“Oh leave it be, will you? I left to avoid the politics. Have you not heard that politics poison friendship? It is the great serpent spilling poison on Loki and Sigyn has left to empty her bowl. I tire of it. Let me drink in peace.” 

Bernadette laughed, then shook his head a bit at Grantaire. Taking a bottle of wine in one hand and a glass in the other, he lead Grantaire towards a divan. 

“I find you in a bad mood, it seems,” he said over his shoulder. “Tell me instead how you come to be here. I did not think the bourgeoisie were inclined to ban an unfortunate son from their festivities?”

Once they were both sat down, Grantaire drank another big gulp of wine. 

“Oh, my parents do not know of my nature, nor have they banned me. I simply do not wish to be in their company if I can avoid it.” 

Even as he said it, Grantaire knew it wasn’t quite true. He and his father did not get along, but he missed his mother, sometimes. His uncle was not so bad, either. And his siblings… 

“You quarrel?”

“Ceaselessly. Odysseus hurries to Ithaca, but Poseidon thwarts him every step of the way. Indeed, I have only recently escaped Calypso and have no desire to turn back. I shall never make it to the Phaeacians if I go home, for I drown in my father’s presence.” 

Bernadette frowned slightly as he sipped his wine. 

“Where is Ithaca in this metaphor?” 

“It is not a place, but a feeling: contentment.” 

Bernadette looked at him for a long moment.

“I think I understand. Although for me, contentment would come in being allowed my family again.”

“They have dismissed you?” 

Bernadette nodded. 

“I am here on Christmas Eve, am I not? I was caught with a man in the Champs-Élysée about a year ago, and I was not able to hide the reason for my arrest from my family. A few of my siblings see me still, but my parents will not.” 

Grantaire solemnly refilled both their glasses, then lifted his own towards Bernadette.

“Well,” he said. “To shitty families!” 

Bernadette snorted, but repeated: “To shitty families” and clinked their glasses together before both drank. 

A bit away, Enjolras was still in the midst of a political discussion. He did not look to be speaking, but he was regarding the current speaker with attentive interest. He had never looked more like marble. 

“He’s an interesting figure, your companion,” Bernadette commented. “His disdain for the gendarmes has won him friends, though his Republicanism might be too much for some.” 

Grantaire hummed noncommittally and Bernadette changed tactics. 

“He called you Adrien, did he not?” 

“Well, it is my Christian name. And I suppose it is not an unfitting name. Though I have no wish to conquer the Mediterranean nor an Antinous to deify, I am something of a pagan, myself, and so it was not unwise of my parents to bestow upon me a Roman name. My parents may have meant to honour relatives and popes, but it is Hadrian who is honoured in the end. And what of your Christian name? Is it Bernard?”

“It is my name, but neither Christian in origin or in nature. It is my surname.”

“Oh-ho! And you do not fear such a revelation?” 

Bernadette snorted.

“As I said, my family has already dismissed me. I scarcely have friends who do not know where and with whom I spend my time, nor do I have much in the way of fortune. Besides, it is hardly an uncommon surname. I have little enough to fear.” Bernadette turned to smile flirtatiously at Grantaire. “And you seem to me an honest sort of girl, dear Briséis. You would never betray little old me, now would you?” 

Grantaire laughed loudly at that.

“Honest, perhaps. Too honest, if so. But don’t you know an honest girl is the most dangerous sort? The honest will swindle you while maintaining they have done you no wrong, they are wolves in sheeps’ clothes. A blushing virgin brings down a siege in nine days, a thousand ships are launched for honest beauty, a betrayed woman’s curse starts the Punic Wars; indeed you should fear nothing more than an honest girl. Veritas, that is to say, Aletheia, dines with the gods and so she has their ear. She is much more dangerous than Apate, who does their bidding, or Pseudologoi, who must walk without feet. The truth shall make you free, but in freedom is danger. The guillotine is an honest sort of implement.”

“Ah, but all your examples, Briséis, they include a dishonest partner,” Bernadette said once Grantaire paused for air. “If neither deceives the other, there will be no need for honesty to turn cutting. You are right, a guillotine is honest, a duel is honest, but where there is no betrayal, there is no need for either. Is it not so?” 

Bernadette sent Grantaire another of his brilliant smiles once he finished speaking. Grantaire grinned back and put a hand on Bernadette’s thigh in return. 

“If so, that will be all the better for you, for I have become a competent duelist in recent years.” 

Bernadette turned his whole body towards Grantaire. 

“Is that so?”

Bernadette looked Grantaire up and down and then, before Grantaire could respond to his words, moved in to kiss him. Grantaire kissed back and started mindlessly fondling Bernadette’s thigh, in response to which Bernadette deepened the kiss. Once they broke apart, they were out of breath. While they soon resumed kissing, Grantaire could not help but wonder if Enjolras had seen them...

Well, then, let him see! Let him see what this place really was! He could hold his political sermons anywhere, but this was not a place for priests! Let him know to condemn Grantaire, to stop making excuses for him! 

Once they broke apart again, Grantaire could not help but glance towards Enjolras. He did not appear to have taken notice, but Bernadette did. He moved a bit away, leaned his cheek on his hand and considered Grantaire.

“Have you made him promises? That wouldn’t do, after all our talk of honesty.” 

Grantaire stared at Bernadette for a few seconds then rolled his eyes demonstratively.

“He is not that manner of friend.”

Bernadette lifted an eyebrow.

“Indeed? You could have fooled me.” 

“It would be no great feat.”

Now it was Bernadette’s turn to roll his eyes. 

“Oh, quit insulting me and show me some of that honesty you spoke of, instead.”

Grantaire relented with a sigh and a glance towards the object of discussion. 

“You are not wrong. I want him.” 

“What holds you back?” 

Grantaire snorted.

“Have you seen him? Have you seen me?” 

“Has he rejected you on such grounds?” 

“I have not approached the topic with him. He is marble come to life, a god, and I am all too human. A wretch, truly.” 

Bernadette didn’t answer him immediately. Over at Enjolras’ congregation, a lively debate seemed to be taking place. Enjolras was speaking again. 

“Do you want my advice?” Bernadette finally asked.

Grantaire turned to look at him. 

“Not particularly,” he said, but the question had been rhetorical. 

“Stop feeling so sorry for yourself.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, inspiration taken from Hirschfeld in terms of different details of the party. Eg the whole thing with the servants:
> 
> _“A second table is set up in the corridor, there the children and the servants have their Christmas dinner [...] It is a point of honour that the same meals are brought to both the main table and this side table, and that here too everything should look particularly festive.”_
> 
> This would also have been relevant last chapter, but in Grantaire claiming to be “something of a pagan” is inspired by a section of Mademoiselle de Maupin where the character in question is trying to come to terms with his infatuation with (what he thinks is) a man:
> 
>  _I am a man of the Homeric days;—the world in which I live is not mine, and I have no comprehension of the society that surrounds me. Christ did not come to earth for me; I am as great a pagan as Alcibiades and Phidias._ [(x)](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48894/48894-h/48894-h.htm)
> 
> Haven’t read most of it but Pilf brought this section to my attention bc Pilf is awesome. 
> 
> As for R’s rambly references:  
> “Are the Pauline Epistles not an unfortunate thing?” All direct references to homosexuality in the New Testament are in the Pauline Epistles afaik.  
> “A blushing virgin brings down a siege in nine days” ie Jeanne d’Arc  
> “A thousand ships…” ie Helen of Troy, the actual line “A face that launched a thousand ships” is from Doctor Faustus  
> “A betrayed woman’s curse…” ie Dido, queen of Carthage  
> Veritas/Aletheia: The Goddess of truth in Roman/Greek Mythology  
> Apate: Embodiment of deceit in Greek Mythology.  
> Pseudologoi: Embodiment of lies in Greek Mythology.
> 
> [Anyway, R @ Enjolras if he wasn’t a coward lol ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoJS_95HWGI)


	12. Early 1828

The rest of Grantaire’s Christmas went by uneventfully. He and Enjolras had left the _réveillon_ engaged in peaceable, inconsequential conversation, but had not seen each other much since. They had taken meals together on occasion, but Enjolras had apparently chosen this peaceful time to make a count of how many weapons Les Amis de l’ABC had access to in total and what other sources might possibly equip them with, and so was preoccupied. Grantaire wondered, idly, if he had indeed seen he and Bernadette together. He had said nothing of it, but he was not given to harshness where other measures might suffice. Indeed, Grantaire did not consider it unlikely that Enjolras might be avoiding him for this infraction against virtue. 

While Bossuet was usually the first to return, he took his time in doing so this year. Indeed, it was Prouvaire who returned first. He showed up on Grantaire’s doorstep not many days after the _réveillon_ , shivering even through his greatcoat. 

“I had hoped to invite you on a walk in the Luxembourg Garden,” he said. “But it seems it is too cold for such an endeavour.” 

“Well, come in, then! Don’t stand there, I do not wish to have a frozen man upon my doorstep.”

Prouvaire did as he was asked, but once he had entered, he only took off his hat and indeed clutched his coat even closer around his body. 

“Come over to the fire,” Grantaire instructed. 

Prouvaire obliged, but instead of sitting down in the chair place just across from the fireplace, he went a few steps further and sat down on the floor very close to the fire. Once thusly situated, he began to rub the feeling back into his fingers as he stared into the flames. 

“Have you ever considered how alike fire and snow are?” He asked a few moments later. 

“Are they not opposites?”

“I should not say so. They are both playful, wild. Pure, raw forces of nature that can kill, but that man has nevertheless learned to use to his advantage. Flames for warmth in our fireplaces, snow for the walls of a home in the Arctic. Hestia or Skadi, it is the same thing, no?” 

“Would you see all nature as kin, then?” Grantaire challenged. “If the warm and the cold are the same, are the living and the dead the same, too? Is the rigid, unmoving stone the cousin of the ever flowing cloud? Or can there, in your opinion, Jehan, exist no true opposites?”

Prouvaire considered this as he rubbed his fingers.

“You mistake my meaning. It is not that one thing cannot be the opposite of the other, but merely that opposites often are alike in surprising ways, too. The man who is very tall knocks his head against the lintel, while the man who is very short cannot reach the top shelf; both are inconvenienced by their height and in that they are alike, even as they are opposites. You see?“

“I see, but I do not agree. They may both be troubled by their height, but for opposite reasons and with different ends. You would have all the world be alike, with comparisons such as those.”

“Well, are we not all brothers and sisters, sailing the same ship through the rough waves of life?”

Grantaire scoffed. If so, there were many willing fratricide. 

“Your father is a Commodore, is he not? Has your time at home awakened a desire for Naval metaphors within you, Jehan?”

Prouvaire, who had finally stopped shivering, shook his head a bit then stood up and walked towards Grantaire’s desk where a mess of half-finished sketches and letters reigned. A few of the sketches must have been of the nature that made maiden Jehanne blush, but he struggled through it and found something else.

“Is this me?” he asked, sounding a bit shy.

Grantaire got up and walked over to him. He couldn’t recall having sketched Prouvaire, but sure enough, a loose but recognisable rendition of him in ink could be seen among the rest. 

“It seems so,” he said mildly. 

Although Grantaire didn’t draw much apart from idle sketches and the erotica he earned his money doing, some of those idle sketches did, occasionally, depict his friends, and if Prouvaire really went looking, he’d probably find others apart from himself. Prouvaire seemed satisfied enough with this simple find, though, for his eyes now fell on another sketch.

“Where is this?” he asked, pointing to one sketch in particular. Grantaire leaned in to see which he meant, and found the flower garlands of Comtois’ _réveillon._ He frowned slightly — he couldn’t remember drawing this. Had he really been so drunk when he returned home that night? Oh, right, he remember a bit. He’d been… inspired, in terms of erotica. He must have drawn this at some point before or after that piece.

“You missed quite a thing, abandoning Paris as you did,” he told Prouvaire. “Do you know Gigi Ballerina? Well, no, I suppose you wouldn’t know her, no. Well, anyhow, we were a group of men invited to her suitors Christmas gathering, and these garlands, my dear, were the decorations employed. Indeed, it is a shame that I had to bring Enjolras and not yourself, for your Romantic sensibilities would surely have taken better to the beauty around you than our resident Ascetic did. In fact—”

Prouvaire had look up at him in surprise and now interrupted:

“Wait, you brought Enjolras? To an _infâme_ party?”

“Oh, shit,” Grantaire said eloquently. 

What was he supposed to say? Had he not raged against Bahorel for exposing him to a third party, yet here he was letting his tongue loose about Enjolras? Yet could he take back what he had said? Was there any explanation for Enjolras' presence, if not his own nature? 

Seeing his expression, Prouvaire hurried to comfort him. 

“Grantaire, it is no great crime that i know, is it? I, myself, after all… Well, do you believe we might bring him to the Alexandré with us as well, then? It would be ever so lovely to have a companion more join us there.”

With thoughts of what Grantaire usually did when he went to the Alexandré, he wasn’t sure he agreed. He could be shameless with Prouvaire present, with Joly and Bossuet even more so, but if Enjolras was there? It might put a damper on his wordly exploits and he didn’t particularly want that. The pleasures of the flesh were those most easily available, after all. 

Seeing that Prouviare was waiting for an answer, Grantaire shrugged.

“He hasn’t expressed such an interest to me, so I do not know if he wishes to go.” 

“Well, then you must ask him, of course!” Prouvaire exclaimed, as if it were that easy. 

“Our dear leader has other concerns as of now — Athena is planning how best to protect Athens in the days to come. I have scarcely seen him since Christmas.”

Prouvaire seemed about to say something, but stopped himself with a sigh and let the subject go. They instead returned to debating the nature of opposites and from there somehow ended up in a discussion of whether it was Achilles or Patroclus who was the beloved. Grantaire took Aeschylus’ side while Prouvaire took Phaedrus’ and the discussion dragged on so long that the two took their supper together before finally parting. 

  
  


With the increased snowfall of January came troubled waters, though not for Grantaire. One day, when he was taking his lunch at the Musain in the company of Joly, Combeferre, Bahorel, and Prouvaire, Bossuet came tumbling through the door, leaving wet tracks of melted snow behind him. 

“Apologies, Luison,” he said, eyes wet from the stinging wind outside, as he passed her carrying plates away. Their usually cheery fellow sounded uncharacteristically subdued and when he made it over to their table, he seemed to deflate down into the chair next to Bahorel. 

"Well," Bossuet said. "It seems I am an orphan. Do you suppose the Republic is looking for new adoptive children? Do you suppose Feuilly would put in a word for me with her?”

Joly quietly reached across the table to cover Bossuet's hand with his. Combeferre and Prouvaire exchanged a look.

"Your father..?" Combeferre asked.

"Yes, he’s dead," Bossuet said flatly. "I am now the only Monsieur Lesgle! Well, perhaps not the only, but the only Monsieur Lesgle of Meaux, at least. Suppose I should figure out how one handles an estate before my step-mother has my head."

"My condolences," Bahorel said and a murmur of repetitions went through the table.

Bossuet smiled melancholically and shook his head.

"I didn't know how to feel about him when he was alive and I don't know how to feel now that he's dead…"

"If he was a bastard, you don't owe him anything," Grantaire said.

"Grantaire, that isn't helping," Joly chastised.

Grantaire supposed he wouldn't know how to feel, once he outlived his father, either.

"Remember what we spoke of last week?" Combeferre asked softly, earning him curious looks from the rest of the table.

Bossuet swallowed something and nodded vigorously. Then he ran a hand over his face and through his scarce hair, before standing up as abruptly as he had arrived.

"Excuse me, I have to go write a letter," he said and hurried back towards the door. 

"Louis!" Joly yelled and ran after him.

Everyone looked at Combeferre.

"What _did_ you speak of last week?" Bahorel asked.

Combeferre shrugged. 

“Simply that he is allowed to feel however he does about this matter. It was no great insight.”

Bossuet’s reaction would imply otherwise, but that was not the part Grantaire took most notice of.

“You knew already? About his father being ill?” 

Combeferre nodded. 

“He told me last week, after returning from Meaux.” 

Grantaire frowned at his wine. Why in the world would Bossuet have relayed a personal detail to Combeferre before he relayed it to Grantaire? Did he not trust Grantaire with sensitive matters? Was Grantaire simply a man to drink with, not a man to speak to? What had he done that had made him but a worm to their eagle? Grantaire vaguely recalled Bossuet having dodged any personal questions, that last night they’d spent together at the Alexandre before he left for the season. Had Bossuet been keeping things from him all this time? Were they simply not the type of friends Grantaire had assumed them to be? 

“Tuberculosis,” Combeferre said in answer to some question from Prouvaire. “I’m afraid it is still not a terribly well-understood illness.” 

"Indeed," Bahorel said darkly."It took my oldest aunt last summer."

Grantaire's paternal grandmother, a stately, will-strong old lady whose admonishments had somehow always been easier to take than his father's, had walked around with a blood-soaked handkerchief for many months before she died, too stubborn to give in to the illness even in her advanced age. He, too, knew tuberculosis.

With his newfound foul mood, Grantaire ignored the conversation around him and merely concentrated on eating the last of his food. Once done, he downed the rest of his wine in one go and stood up to leave. His three companions looked at him in surprise as he shrugged on his coat. 

“Gentlemen,” he said with an exaggerated bow, affecting greater drunkenness than he felt, before turning around to leave. All three of them said something or other to him as he left, but Grantaire ignored them and simply exited the Musain undeterred. What was the point of him being there, after all? He was but a useless appendage to their well-formed body, only allowed their company because they pitied him. 

As he stepped outside, the cold air whisked away what little genuine drunkenness had found root in him. Grantaire made a face and crossed his arms in an attempt to keep warm as he walked on. Where to he wasn’t sure, but he eventually found himself in a nearby gambling hall. There he drank and played his money away, trying desperately to make his dark thoughts leave with it. At some point, once drink had begun to truly addle his senses, he took notice of a conversation happening near him. 

“Have you seen his mistress? Why he would hold on to such a hag, I can’t imagine…”

“Take pity on him, my friend, he could hardly hope for better, could he?”

The conversation was happening at a table just behind Grantaire, where four men who were clearly well-acquainted sat and played a friendly game of dominos. They looked to be students. Indeed, one of them was wearing the uniform of the _École Polytechnique_ , while another was reading a law book between his turns. 

“He has the money to pay for better,” the polytechnic student objected. 

“Just because that’s what you do,” another said. 

“Whatever would be the point of doing otherwise? You know you shall not remain with your mistresses, so why delude both them and yourselves with romantic notions?”

“You’re a cold-hearted one, Antoine. How could a man such as you exist? A man whose heart does not flutter at the sight of a beautiful maiden? Or _does_ it flutter, just not for maidens?” 

“As if. Buggers are even worse than you lot.” 

All four of them laughed. 

“In that case, my dear friend, there will come a day when a maiden shall steal your heart and you shall have to swallow your words.” 

“That’s right!” Grantaire exclaimed, stumbling over towards the table. “You are a foolish Benedick indeed!” 

The four men exchanged looks, clearly confused at Grantaire’s interruption. Before any of them got a chance to voice this, however, Grantaire barrelled on. 

“Indeed, you are not just foolish, but cruel! You do not know the joy of two souls being joined, so you would deny others from experiencing it! Is your soul truly so decrepit that your own misery must become the misery of others?!” 

“Watch your mouth,” the polytechnic student said. “Or I shall have to shut it for you.” 

“Do you know him, Antoine?” whispered the law student. 

“Hah! Not just cruel, but cowardly!” Grantaire exclaimed, determined to get what he wanted. “What a man!” 

This Antoine rushed up.

“I’ll show you cowardly!” 

Grantaire grinned. 

“Go ahead!”

Antoine lunged out after Grantaire with a first, but Grantaire dodged to the side, then returned with a lunge of his own. As Grantaire’s fist connected with Antoine’s face, he yelled in pain as blood spluttered from his nose while Grantaire swore under his breath — he had hurt his fingers with the punch. There was little time to consider the pain in his fingers, though, for soon one of the polytechnic student’s friends was on him, clutching Grantaire’s hair and janking him forward by it. Grantaire swore again, much louder this time. He managed to slam his head into the stomach of the one who had grabbed him by the hair, causing him to stumble backward as he tried to catch his breath, but as soon as Grantaire got rid of one attacker, another was upon him. Before long, Grantaire was crumpled together on the floor, no longer in any position to retaliate, merely trying to mitigate the damage of the endless kicks he was enduring. He vaguely registered that someone had called for the owner, but when the kicking stopped for long enough for Grantaire to look up at what was happening around him, it was not bouncers who were fighting off his attackers, but Bahorel and Enjolras!

At first, Grantaire thought he must have hit his head a bit harder than he'd initially believed, to be seeing his friends all of a sudden. But no, it truly was them. Bahorel was saying something as he fought with Grantaire’s assailants, doubtlessly mocking them, but Grantaire couldn’t quite make sense of the sounds. Enjolras kept shooting looks over at Grantaire — so often, in fact, that Grantaire feared it’d distract him too much from the brawl he found himself in the middle of. Unwilling to be the cause of such a thing, Grantaire forced himself to sit up, sending Enjolras a miniscule nod he hoped would satisfy the other man that he needn’t worry. It seemed to work, for Enjolras ceased his constant glances and instead managed to jam his knee so hard into the stomach of one of the attackers that he joined Grantaire on the floor. Next to him, Bahorel was grinning, feeling just as at home in a bar brawl as he did in a literary debate. As he watched the fight, Grantaire absentmindedly massaged his split lip with the edge of his tongue, the taste of hop gradually being replaced with that of iron. Finally, the bouncers arrived, and the brawl was broken up. Grantaire didn’t perceive much of the conversation, too busy focusing on keeping his eyes open, but a while after, Enjolras and Bahorel helped him to his feet. 

“Grantaire…” 

Grantaire blinked a few times, first trying to focus on Enjolras’ concerned face through his swollen eyes but then giving up when the task proved too difficult. When Enjolras and Bahorel began helping him out of the gambling hall, he instead turned his attention to his legs and feet, trying to keep himself upright enough that his exit would not be completely bereft of dignity. 

As they walked outside and down the street, Grantaire registered, vaguely, that Bahorel was cursing, talking himself into a frenzy in his indignance at their enemy combatants. 

“I commend you for the rescue, Ajax, son of Telamon, but does it have to be accompanied with so much noise? A war cry may be a noble thing at times, a lament, too, and a smearing of the enemy’s lack of virtue may be enjoyable, but it can be tiring, too. Come to think of it, are you Ajax or are you Odysseus? Menelaus? Surely not Achilles, he stands on my other side. No matter, no matter. What I wish to say is: my head is noisy enough on its own, without you adding to the spectacle!”

“Do you think he has a concussion?” Enjolras asked Bahorel. 

“He speaks nonsense at the best of times.” 

“I meant, if his head’s… Grantaire, does your head hurt?”

Grantaire just groaned in response. 

Enjolras sighed.

“It is not so far to your quarters now, Grantaire. Just hold on a while yet.” 

Grantaire could do little else, as things were. They arrived at Madame Deschamps’ house soon after, the madame herself showing her face when she heard them enter noisily. 

“My God, Monsieur Grantaire!” She exclaimed. “Whatever happened to you?” 

“He was beat up, madame. Four against one. I’m afraid we only arrived when they had already him on the floor. I am Bahorel, this is Enjolras, we are friends of Grantaire.” 

“It is good he has friends such as you, monsieurs. Go ahead, now, I will warm some water for you.”

“Many thanks, madame.”

“You have a kind landlady,” Enjolras commented, after she had showed up with the promised pail of water for them.

“Oh, you should hear how she pesters me when I miss her breakfast, Enjolras, how she bullies me whenever she has need of a man to help her. Kind, yes, but strict, too. It is a common combination in the fairer sex.”

“You cannot base your opinion of the entire sex on a few,” Enjolras said mildly, as he wetted Grantaire’s face towel in the pail. Bahorel had already left, excusing himself on account of an important meeting he had to attend, the details of which Grantaire was not granted but Enjolras seemed to be privy to. 

“Excuse me,” Enjolras said quietly, then pressed the wet cloth against Grantaire’s cheek. It was gentle, but Grantaire hissed in pain at the contact all the same. Enjolras paused for a moment, but resumed not long after.

“I should really call on Joly to examine this…” he said as he continued cleaning Grantaire’s face. 

“No, no, don’t disturb Joly with my nonsense, it is far more important he help Bossuet…”

“Then I shall send for Combeferre.”

Pain, despair, anger and self-hate flooded up in Grantaire in one big hodgepodge of emotion.

“Bah! Combeferre? No.”

Enjolras stopped cleaning his face momentarily, a confused frown on his face.

“When did you two fall out?”

“It is not a falling out, but a matter of winning and losing. I have always been in second, nay, third, perhaps fourth place, dear Enjolras, and this day it came to my attention that even in the deepest of friendships, this is still the manner of things. Yes, our Eagle flew to the good doctor — and I do not mean the one in his nest — and sang for him, but remained quiet as a mouse with me, the fellow he has known longer and more intimately, yet with less pleasure, it would seem. So you see, I have lost and do not wish to see my rival.”

Enjolras seemed at a loss for how to respond to that, so he merely returned to the task of cleaning Grantaire’s face. Rather than say more, Grantaire hissed in pain. 

“Sorry,” Enjolras mumbled. Then, a bit after: “Friendship is not a game of winners and losers, my dear Grantaire. How can Combeferre defeat you? He is Combeferre and you are Grantaire. You are hardly the same. Even, however, should I grant your premise, I do not see why your anger should lie with him.”

Grantaire scoffed.

“You just say that because he is your closest friend.”

“I say that because it is rational.” 

“I can hardly be angry with Bossuet given the current circumstances, can I?” 

“So you are angry with Combeferre out of convenience? Be fair, Grantaire.” 

Grantaire laughed.

“My dear friend, when have I ever impressed upon you that I am fair?” 

To Grantaire’s surprise, Enjolras did not fall quiet this time.

“At the _réveillon_ ,” he said softly. “You were quite fair with those two lads.” 

Enjolras had stopped moving the cloth, his hand now simply resting on Grantaire’s jaw, Grantaire’s beard and the cloth in Enjolras’ hand the only things in the way of skin contact. For a moment, Grantaire forgot both pain and anger, and just stared into Enjolras’ earnest blue eyes, his heart hammering away in his chest. It was too much. Far too much.

Grantaire looked away and the spell was broken. Enjolras removed the cloth from Grantaire’s jaw and dropped it into the pail to clean it. After soaking and twisting it a few times, he left the cloth in a pile of dirty clothes Grantaire had in the corner of the room. Once he returned, it was to get his coat. As he shrugged it on, something gnawed at Grantaire.

“Enjolras… before you go, I have something to confess.” 

Enjolras turned around, an unreadable expression on his face. He nodded for Grantaire to continue. 

“I… “ Grantaire bit his lip and almost considered backing out. “Well, I was speaking to Jehan about what I had been doing over Christmas and I accidentally let slip that you accompanied me. Not to worry, Prouvaire is quite fetching in a dress. Still, I... know I should learn to control what I say, I’m… well, I’m an idiot.”

Enjolras made a face as if to say he didn’t disagree, but didn’t otherwise seem affected by the revelation. 

“I had for some time been planning to speak to Joly and Lesgle of the matter. I had not realised that Prouvaire, also...? I suppose I might as well speak to him too, then.” 

“Is that all you have to say?” 

Enjolras shrugged. 

“What else?” 

“You went to such lengths to keep it hidden before and now my carelessness has revealed you. Are you not angry with me? As I was angry with Bahorel? You do not have to spare my feelings just because I have been in a fight, Enjolras.”

“I am not sparing your feelings. I don’t know what’s changed, exactly, although… well, I suppose our conversations, meeting those I did at the _réveillon_ you let me tag along for… It is not such a scary thing, now. Besides, you thought yourself revealed to an outsider, but I know I am only revealed to insiders, that also makes a difference, no?”

Grantaire scoffed. 

“Sometimes, I think you’re a tad more rational than is good.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Nothing, I never mean anything by what I say. I merely think a man such as you should be impossible. I have seen you angry, several times, livid, even, at concepts and men beyond your reach. But here I sit, having wronged you, and you are calm beyond measure. You are an impossible thing.”

Enjolras shook his head with a chuckle.

“If I do not feel anger I do not see why I should feign it nor would I know how to go about doing such a thing.”

“It is that you do not feel it that puzzles me, dear Enjolras.”

Enjolras shook his head in amusement once more. 

“Like you with Combeferre, you mean?”

Enjolras rose from his seat and spoke once more before Grantaire could answer:

“Be good for him when he shows up, yes? He’s doing you a favour. As for the other thing… You, who quote the Greeks, should know that Philia is not a limited resource.”

He then patted Grantaire on the head like he had just instructed a young child how to act and not a man a year or two his senior. As he left, a small, teasing smile played on his lips. 

Grantaire did, he think, manage to behave for Combeferre once he showed up. 

It would take several weeks before Grantaire saw more than a glimpse of Bossuet. He was busy sorting out his father’s estate, always either pouring over the papers at home, out to speak with various of his father’s connections or scouting out new ventures. The family had left sorting out the estate entirely to Bossuet and his brother-in-law, who had been granted the late Monsieur Lesgle’s post office, as they were the only men with a stake in the estate. Grantaire didn’t know just how involved the brother-in-law was, but if Joly was to be believed, Bossuet bore by far the heavier burden.

Joly for his part was maintaining a delicate balance between studies, his lover and the Les Amis de l’ABC and thus his time for other endeavours was similarly limited. One night, though, both of them, along with their Musichetta, took a night off from their responsibilities to take dinner with Grantaire. 

“Mademoiselle, tell me honestly, for I shall be your brave defender in this matter, have these two knaves been treating you well? I shall not trust that they have till I have your word on the matter, Mademoiselle Musichetta.”

Bossuet and Joly shared a long-suffering look at that, but Musichetta, who had by now grown used to Grantaire, played along. 

“It is good of you to ask, Monsieur Grantaire, for they have indeed been most cruel. Do you know that last night, Jean kept me awake all night with his reading? And the other day, Louis criticised my poetry? And not long before that, they had both deprived me of male company at the theatre?”

Grantaire shook his head disapprovingly.

“See, I knew they were not to be trusted. Fear not, mademoiselle, you can always come to me.”

“You asked me to read for you!” Joly protested. 

“Indeed, but you should have known I needed my sleep and refused me. I was yawning over my work all day because of you.”

“You kept insisting that I be ruthless about your poetry!” Bossuet protested.

“Indeed, but as my beau, you should have played pretend; you should have taken the pages, looked at them very carefully, then told me they were without fault!” 

Joly and Bossuet shared another look. 

“And about the theatre? What flimsy defense can you offer there?” Grantaire demanded. 

“Musichetta told me very clearly that she wanted to go with her friends,” Joly said. “Louis was out.” 

Grantaire shook his head.

“Yet another test by the fairer sex failed. Am I right, Musichetta?” 

Musichetta nodded faux solemnly. 

“Indeed you are, Grantaire.”

Thusly united in tormenting their friends, Grantaire and Musichetta grinned at each other. They had clearly won this encounter. 

“I truly am happy to have introduced you,” Bossuet said drily. “Indeed, it is as if your sweeter qualities shine all the brighter in each other’s company.” 

“Well, enough of that, now,” Musichetta said. “Here comes our food.”

And indeed it did. Pork and steaming hot potatoes were carried to their table, joining the wine they had already received. The four were silent for a bit as they began on their food, the silence always brought on by a good meal descending on them. After finishing half his plate, Grantaire broke the silence:

“How goes the business with your father’s estate, then? Well, I hope?” 

Bossuet finished his wine before he answered.

“Oh, it’s not too bad, really, I do believe it shall soon be in order. To succeed in estate management, one has only to start thinking like the bourgeoisie, so it is no great feat.”

Grantaire laughed. 

“Are you bourgeois now, then, citizen?” 

“Yes, yes, the most bourgeois of all law students doing their first year for a third time.”

The next time Grantaire drank with Bossuet, he had lost it all. 

How like him it had been, to dismiss Grantaire’s concern with joviality, to pretend it was all fine till there was no longer any pretense possible. 

His father’s land, his house and various other assets… it had all been sold to pay for what had been lost in a bad investment. 

He had been in Meaux a while to sort out the sales, but on the Ides of March, Grantaire found him at the Musain, drinking wine like his life depended on it. He was still wearing the coat he had travelled out in. 

“Lesgle…” Grantaire said as he sat down across from him. 

“Oh, is it you, Capital-R? Come, have some of my wine!” 

Reluctant as he felt, Grantaire never passed up on an offer of wine. Grantaire made a face when he tasted it. It was not particularly good wine. He drank a full cup anyway. 

“Did you just get back?” 

“Yes, yes. It’s so lovely to travel, don’t you think? I wish I could travel more, see more than just France, you know? But alas, she needs me, so here I shall stay. What a demanding mistress is our Patria.” 

“How did it go?”

“Splendidly, of course. How else?”

“Lesgle, maybe…” 

“Why are you so serious, Capital-R? Is it the melancholy again? Or is it not Grantaire before me, but a doppelgänger? Tell me, what is your name, stranger?” 

Grantaire laughed despite himself. 

“Listen, Bossuet, I just… don’t you think I should find Jeanette, huh? Or Musichetta?” 

Bossuet downed his cup, then reached for the bottle to refill it. 

“No, that’s alright. The two of us are having fun, aren’t we? There’s no need to get them.” 

Grantaire sighed. More like Joly or Musichetta would make him talk of what had transpired and he didn’t want to, not yet, anyway. What was Grantaire supposed to do with that? Indulge Bossuet? He didn’t fancy leaving him behind to find either of his lovers, at least. 

“Fine, you win,” Grantaire said and called on a waitress to bring them better wine and a cup for Grantaire. 

“If you’re going to drown your sorrows, at least drown them in better wine than that drivel.” 

“What sorrows could I have? I’m free. Money is a prison, Grantaire, my dear, remember that.”

“I’ll go tell the next gamin I see that, then,” Grantaire replied. 

“What a waste! They already know it, such wisdom would be wasted. No, tell the next bourgeoisie you see. He shall appreciate your kindness and offer you a great boon for it. Listen to me, Grantaire, I have just made your fortune.” 

“I thought the point was that fortunes were bad to have?” 

“Not your fortune in money, your fortuna, your fate. Here I believed you to be a student of the classics, but I have found a blind spot! How curious.”

“It is not my fault your speech is unclear, now is it? Which Fortuna do you mean, then? Fortuna Belli or Fortuna Redux?”

“Fortuna Virilis.”

“Hah! As if I need the help. She favours me already, how else do you believe I make my conquests? Looking as you see me? No, she must surely already be on my side. ”

“That must be new. Have you been _that_ lucky while I’ve been away?” 

Grantaire play-hit Bossuet in response who broke into a laugh. 

The thing about laughter, though, is that it is never very far from tears. It was as if the sound broke the damn, for slowly, Bossuets joviality finally cracked. He sniffed, not quite crying yet, but his eyes blank, threatening to spill over. 

"They blame me…" Bossuet said, his voice small, so odd and wrong for his person. "They all blame me…”

“Lesgle…” 

“I… I lost it all. They're right. It's all my fault. God, Grantaire, what if they're right?"

At that, Grantaire could feel nothing but great, overpowering indignation on behalf of his friend.

"They're not _right!_ They all agreed to the investment, did they not? How can they blame you now?”

"But I was the one who made inquiries, I was the one who…"

"Who was made a fool of? Taken advantage of? Indeed. It’s not your fault."

Bossuet was shaking his head slightly, a faraway look in his eyes.

"I should have researched with more vigour, I should have…"

"What of your brother-in-law? Was he not equally involved?"

"Not in that part… not very much, at least… I was the one living in Paris, after all…” Bossuet swallowed something. “They’re _never_ going to forgive me, Grantaire.”

Grantaire rushed up from his chair and thrust his fist into the table. 

“Fuck them! Fuck them and what they will or will not forgive! They made you do it all on your own and now they want to give you all the blame?! They are the ones to blame! They are the ones who should feel ashamed of themselves! Not you! _Never_ you!” 

Around them, people had turned around to look once Grantaire started making a spectacle of himself. Bossuet sighed, resting his head on the table.

“Sit down, Grantaire,” was all he said and Grantaire obliged. 

An hour later, Grantaire managed to convince Bossuet to move the wake to Joly's quarters. A further hour after that, Joly returned from his lecture hall, took in the drunken scene before him that swung as rapidly between revelry and despair as a pendulum and embraced Bossuet till he finally started crying. Grantaire left, not long after, promising to send for Musichetta. 

On a day about a week after Bossuet’s return, Joly had left him and Musichetta alone and had instead called on Grantaire to walk with him in the Tuileries Garden.

“He is better,” he confided. “He still blames himself, I do not know if we can ever convince him to do otherwise, but he’s forcing himself less, now. Is it not strange, for a lack of joviality to be a good sign?”

Joly shook his head. 

“Grantaire, when I asked you to meet me, it was to discuss something with you. I have an idea, a way to show Louis that though his so-called family may not, there are those who cherish him and will always do so. I am unsure, though. I want your opinion.”

When Joly told him of what he had planned, Grantaire broke into a smile and quickly granted his approval and promised to assist Joly in the endeavour. 

And thus, Grantaire found himself luring Bossuet to the Café Alexandre one Saturday afternoon near the end of the month.

“I’m not really in the mood, Grantaire. If you want to drink, can we not do it where no-one knows us? If you want carnal company, what do you need me for?”

“You are a stubborn eagle,” Grantaire said. “Just come along, we don’t have to stay long if I can’t cheer you up.”

Bossuet made a face but followed Grantaire nonetheless. 

As they entered the café, Bossuet’s face changed from resignation to shock. 

“What day is it? Why…?” 

Every table in the café was covered in flowers. They were not the expensive types used by Comtois, nor had any of them been made into garlands — indeed, many looked to have been picked in the outskirts of the city — but they were colourful reminders that spring had arrived. Aside from the flowers, someone — Grantaire suspected Dame Cécile — had draped fabric along the bar as if to imitate the decorations of a stage. 

It was early yet, so the café was by no means full, and indeed most of the guests were people they knew. The Piano Queen, Dame Cécile and their usual companions had occupied one table, while both Gigi Songbird and Long Gigi were chatting with the young Albertine at another. At the bar, Bernadette was speaking to his usual companions while Gigi _Ancien Régime_ was chatting with the owner. It was, however, the table comprised of Joly, Musichetta, Prouvaire and — to even Grantaire’s shock — Enjolras and Bahorel that caught Bossuet’s attention as they entered.

“What…?” Bossuet tried to ask as he walked over to their table. At theirs, Dame Cécile was rushing The Piano Queen to get to her instrument. 

“Come sit down, Abbess of Meaux,” Joly called and, dumbly, Bossuet did as he was instructed. 

As soon as he had sat down, Joly got up. Behind them, the Piano Queen had started playing Clementi’s op. 36 no. 1.

“Louis, I do not know if you are aware of it, but I think I would give up anything to make you feel cherished, to let you know just how loved you are. I shall not pretend I knew when I first laid eyes on you, but I think I knew the first time you made me laugh till it brought tears to my eyes. You’re a treasure, Louis, and anyone who does not see it is a fool who has deprived themselves of joy beyond measure. I adore you, Musichetta adores you, Briséis, Jehanne, all our friends… they hold you in the highest esteem. How could they not? No man is as fun or as clever, no man balances righteousness and joy as you do. It is the greatest blessing of my life to know you as I do.”

Bossuet had been rendered speechless. The entire café was on pins and needles. Even The Piano Queen had trailed off in her performance. 

“Louis,” Joly said. “Marry me?” 

The entire café erupted in jeering and cheers until The Piano Queen yelled: 

“Shut up, you bunch of buggers! We haven’t heard his answer yet!” 

It was unclear if Bossuet was laughing so hard that he was crying or if his crying had transformed into laughter somewhere along the way. 

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course, you foolish, foolish man.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Grantaire and Prouvaire were discussing Illiad shipping lol. In modern if somewhat outdated terms, Grantaire ships Achilles/Patroclus while Prouvaire ships Patroclus/Achilles.
> 
> If they were honest with themselves it'd be like:  
>  **Prouvaire:** It's more romantic if the beloved takes revenge on behalf of the lover  
>  **Grantaire:** I Want To Be Rawed By Achilles 
> 
> Grantaire's rambling later on is also Illiad references, comparing Bahorel to Ajax the Great and Enjolras to (of course) Achilles. 
> 
> I confess that in referring to Grantaire & Bossuet's drinking as a "wake" I was thinking of the word in my own language which translates to "grave beer" (or perhaps "funeral drinking", figuratively) and I regret not being able to think of an as on the nose word in English :P 
> 
> I don't know anything about music but my good irl friend plays piano and was _delighted_ when I asked for her help locating an appropriate piano piece for the end scene lol. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCdK5mIxrpg) is the piece in question.
> 
> Once again thanks to PilferingApples for beta-ing!


End file.
